The Music In Me
by AlphaWriter1
Summary: Rachel, Kurt, and Sam have been best friends for as long as they can remember. When they transferred to the prestigious boarding school, their bond only grew stronger. Enter, a new roommate for Rachel with a step-brother who has never settled down before-yet feels something pulling him towards Rachel. Puckleberry/Bram/Klaine romances and Samchel/Hummelberry/Britchel friendships.
1. Chapter 1

**The Music In Me  
A Glee AU Fan Fiction  
Chapter 1**

**_A/N: Links for outfits will be on my polyvore. Link is on my profile. This story was inspired from my love of Rachel having a guy best friend, besides Kurt, and my love of a female, gay best friend and straight male best friend friendships. They are the absolute best, in my opinion and I really wish I had a friendship like that. While talking with my best guy friend about one of my ideas for a Glee-spin-off, this idea came up and we both thought it would have been an amazing idea to have had in Season 1, if the plot line for the show was just a little bit different._**

* * *

On the very first day of pre school, Rachel Berry became best friends with Kurt Hummel.

Their friendship began when they realized they shared a love of musical theater and both had big dreams to someday make it on Broadway, even at four years old. They bonded over their obsessions with Barbra Streisand and Patti Lupone.

They were able to tell one another everything, and they felt like they were the same person. They liked to joke around that the only reason they hadn't been born as siblings was because no parents, no matter how wonderful Kurt's father was or how amazing Rachel's two fathers were, would have been able to handle raising them together.

Whenever Rachel was upset, she'd call up Kurt and he would show up with a large collection of Streisand movies and karaoke versions of musical soundtracks, bags full of cartons of vegan-ice cream in his hands. If Kurt was in a lousy mood, Rachel would show up at his house with one of her fathers' credit cards in her wallet, submitting herself to a Kurt-Hummel-Makeover-Extravaganza before spending the night watching _Rent, Wicked, _and _A Chorus Line _on repeat while he devoured the _Teen Vogue _magazines she would show up with.

If Rachel landed a part in a musical, Kurt was the first person to know, and it wasn't just because he had to check the same cast list to see his own role in the same production. If she got an excellent grade or found out something exciting, she would tell Kurt before she'd tell her fathers, because it just seemed right to tell Kurt everything. And when he came out of the closet and finally admitted to everyone that he was gay-not that anybody had ever doubted it, of course, with how flamboyant he was-Rachel was the first one told so that she could be there to hold his hand when he came out to his father.

But, somewhere along the line, their duo became a trio when Rachel saw Sam Evans being bullied.

He started attending Lima Elementary when Kurt and Rachel were in the third grade, and had tried to befriend the other boys. When Rachel found him, he was surrounded by a large group of snickering males who were laughing _at _Sam for his impressions, because he wasn't very good at making them.

Rachel despised seeing people bullied, though, and had immediately started to laugh hysterically, informing the group that she found his jokes to be hilarious. Of course, that only branded Sam as a loser for the rest of his life, but the blonde boy didn't mind. He became Rachel's guard dog, in a sense, and refused to leave her side. He decided that since Rachel had stood up for him and offered him friendship in his new school, he was going to return the favor by offering her protection.

Of course, the transition from Kurt and Rachel to their trio wasn't all fun and games and it most definitely wasn't easy, because Kurt had never handled change very well. He didn't like it when things changed and he was known to throw tantrums because of changes made to his every day life. The tantrum thrown when Sam entered the picture was his biggest one yet.

When Rachel first introduced Sam as her new best friend, Kurt had informed the blonde that he was stealing Rachel from him and that Sam should go and find a new best friend, because she had been Kurt's best friend first. He had insisted to Sam that everybody was only allowed one best friend in life, and that was all. He was Rachel's so Sam would just have to deal with the facts and move on.

Instead of picking sides, Rachel had told the boys they needed to get along or all three of them would be on their own for the rest of their careers at school, and since nobody wanted that, the boys immediately bonded over the only thing they had in common-their love for Rachel-and the trio became a success, the type of friendship everybody was jealous of, even though they were officially the three biggest losers in the entire school.

Being a trio worked well for them, though, and they were only infiltrated one time, upon all of their approval of their newest member.

When they transferred from McKinley to Presidential Academy-a private boarding school located in New York City, right outside of the actual city on what was actually an island, they were in sixth grade and just starting middle school. And Rachel had craved a female influence in her life, which the boys' had been going crazy to provide for her.

In Lima, they were each practically a member of one another's family. Rachel would show up at Sam's house and play with his little brother and sister when Sam was at work. If Rachel was out at rehearsal for a musical and Kurt's role wasn't required to be there that day, he would show up at Rachel's and talk to her fathers about his sexuality. And Sam was known to show up at Kurt's father's garage-where he worked-on days when Kurt and Rachel had rehearsal and he wasn't working just to help Burt out with the cars every now and then.

So, while Rachel hadn't had an actual mother-figure in her life, she did have Sam's mother who was there for her every single time she needed a woman in her life rather than one of the many men she was surrounded with.

Unfortunately, when she got it in her head to transfer schools because Presidential Academy would look much better to colleges and give her more experiences, they all knew that the biggest problem-even bigger than trying to get Sam and Kurt into the school with her-would be that she would lose that solid female influential from her life.

Of course, they had all thought the solution to their problem was absolutely perfect when they had picked Rachel's first roommate at the school. She got along with Rachel and the girls had similar dreams. Rachel calmed down the anger management issues her new best friend had and the Latino girl was known to make changes that made Rachel just a little bit more bearable to be around. They became even closer than Kurt and Rachel were, which pushed Kurt and Sam to become better friends, something they actually came to appreciate. But they ended up regretting the decision by the time their freshman year was over.

In order to help Rachel heal and help Sam avoid dealing with a crying sixteen year old girl, the boys had decided that the girl's name was off limits and was never to be mentioned again-_ever-_because Rachel had been completely broken when she had walked out of their lives and told them she wasn't going to come back, so they shouldn't hold their breath and expect any form of communication. She was turning her back on them and she was leaving them behind.

Still, the boys were going to do everything in their power to make sure their girl was happy again, as happy as she had been before the stupid Latino that was Santana Lopez had walked out of their life and broken their diva's heart.

* * *

"SAMMY!" Rachel Berry exclaimed, jumping to her feet and racing across the light hard wood floor of her dorm room, directly into the arms of Sam Evans, who barely had time to drop the three large boxes he'd been carrying onto the floor before she was throwing her arms around his neck and he was wrapping his arms around her waist, lifting her up off the ground and spinning her around.

"Hey, there, short-stop," He teased, whispering against her dark chocolate colored curls as he set her back on the ground. "Cover yourself up-this is a co-ed dorm and I don't need to get into trouble for fighting on my first day back," Sam winked at her, shaking his head at her outfit.

Sam was like an over-protective big brother and he was constantly yelling at Rachel about dressing more appropriately. He even had a habit of draping his sweatshirt over her shoulders as they walked if he thought too many guys were staring at her. And he was always threatening guys who made inappropriate comments towards her or stared at her for just a little bit longer than his liking. He'd only gotten into one fight before and that had been with her asshole of an ex-boyfriend, but that was only because Rachel was an expert at calming him down when he was angry.

Her outfit of the day consisted of a pair of faded denim shorts, rolled at the hems to appear just a tad shorter than they really were. Around her neck were the two necklaces she never took off-her pink-sprinkled-popsicle best-friends-forever necklace and her silver heart-shaped locket. She had a silver and pink sparkly cuff bracelet on with a large pink star on the center and pink rose-bud earrings in her ears. Her pink tank top had black script that read BRUNETTES DO IT BETTER and revealed her pink and black heart shaped belly button ring just enough to remind Sam that she had a piercing there.

The one thing that Santana's friendship had done was gotten the tiny brunette out of her pleated, plaid mini skirts and her animal sweaters and into clothes that a typical teenage girl might wear, which had made Kurt's entire day, until he saw that Rachel still refused to spend a ton of money on designer clothing, no matter how much money her dads had. Still, non-designer jeans and a non-designer tank top were better than school-girl skirts, knee high socks, baggy sweaters and Mary Janes.

"Oh, I get it, the straight guy in the room gets all the Rachel-loving?" Kurt teased as he dropped his load of her boxes onto her bed, turning around to face the pair with a teasing smile on his face.

"KURTY" Rachel exclaimed excitedly, fleeing from Sam and wrapping Kurt in a hug.

She acted as if she hadn't seen them in years, when she had just seen them the previous day when they'd arrived back at school. This morning, while Rachel had been unpacking from her pink, sparkly suitcases to put her clothes away, the boys had worked on setting up their own dorm room before heading down to the main office and getting the boxes Rachel's fathers had just shipped to her. They were just bringing them to her now, and with their joint strength, it had only taken them one load. Which meant a new record-whether it was for how strong they were, or how much Rachel had packed for this year, they really weren't sure.

"Please tell me you know exactly where the iHome is, because I can't handle an unpacking montage without any music. It would absolutely ruin my life and I would have to cry," Kurt sighed, falling onto Rachel's bed over dramatically besides her boxes.

"Oh, shut up," Rachel rolled her eyes.

She opened the box on top of the pile Kurt had placed at the foot of her bed as Sam moved the rest of her boxes inside of her room, placing them on her bed. She pulled out her pink iHome slash alarm clock and carried it towards her black nightstand, placing it on top and plugging it in, placing her iTouch into the doc and hitting play on her karaoke playlist.

"We have to sing while we work?" Sam whined as the all too familiar Broadway playlist began to fill the room.

"It's the best part of working with Rachel!" Kurt shot upright, shooting daggers at the blonde haired boy.

Sam sighed, shaking his head as he opened up the box on the top of his own pile, removing the picture frame that was inside and walking towards the wall, looking for the hook where he always hung it from. Once he found it, he hung it up and smiled at the pictures inside with content.

There were too many shots too count inside the black frame and all of them consisted of either Rachel, Kurt or Sam-or all three of them-doing something stupid. There were pictures of Rachel kissing them each on the cheek, pictures of them kissing Rachel on the cheek with her in the middle. Pictures of Sam carrying Rachel around and Kurt and Rachel in costumes.

There were about four pictures of just Sam and Kurt, because Rachel was the glue that had held them together until a few years back. In those pictures, it was a makeshift arm-wrestling match, a picture of them flexing on the beach and one from that disastrous year right before Kurt had come out to his father when he had played football. The final one of the two together was Rachel's favorite one of them, though, and Sam knew it, because it showed how at ease Sam was of being friends and roommates with Kurt, when their sexualities were so different. It was them standing in their room and Sam had just surprised Kurt with a joking kiss on the cheek that had caused a goofy smile and a wide blush to fill his entire face.

"Sammy, remember when you were proud to wear the popsicle friendship necklace?" Rachel teased, sticking her tongue out as she carried her pink frame towards her dresser, placing it on top.

In the frame was a shot of the three of them, Rachel in the middle, as they held up their friendship necklaces to be admired. It was when they were in fifth grade, right before they had left Lima for the boarding school Kurt and Sam had had to work their asses off to get into while Rachel's parents had paid the tuition without even thinking about her attempting to get a scholarship, which she could have gotten without any effort involved.

It was an expensive school, but athletes, artists and musicians could get free-rides if they were good enough. Kurt had been considered one of the elite in the performing arts department and after months of extensive workouts and extra practices, Sam had gotten a football scholarship. With Rachel's voice, she could have easily gotten a free ride, but her father's were wealthy enough that it didn't even matter. They gave her whatever she wanted, no questions asked. Sam was sometimes a little jealous, but he usually forget that there was even a class difference between the two of them, because Rachel rarely liked to broadcast just how much money her fathers made a year. She was probably the least spoiled Jewish American Princess he had ever met in his entire life.

"I still wear it, Rach, it's just under my shirt," he rolled his eyes, patting the pendant that was lying underneath his tee shirt. "I'm your best friend and everybody knows that, but do we need to remind everybody how lucky I am all the time?" He teased her.

As the music played, the group set to work on setting up Rachel's room in their usual habit.

Sam moved anything that was heavy for them and hung everything up because he was the tallest. Kurt, because he was OCD, would organize her CD-racks and DVD-racks so that she could easily find whatever she was looking for when needed. And Rachel would get her desk in order, her custom made Wicked macbook having a spot right at the center of the desk, open just enough.

She had gone out one year for Christmas-when the group was in eighth grade-and bought Sam and Kurt each their own custom-made macbook, against their protests. Sam's had Mario on the front while Kurt's had a New York City skyline across the bottom.

While Rachel could easily afford whatever she wanted and while Kurt lived quite comfortably, being as they were both only children and Kurt's father ran the only garage in their small town, while Rachel's fathers were successful lawyers and doctors, Sam had two hard working parents-his mother was a real estate agent and his dad had come corporate job. He was the oldest in a family of three and he wanted his siblings to be able to get whatever they needed whenever. So, he gave up a lot of things that he wanted.

Rachel knew that, and she respected Sam's decision, and while she knew he would hate to take her charity, she always bought him expensive birthday and Christmas presents, even though she didn't celebrate the holiday. It was just another reason that Sam loved her, because she went out of her way to make him happy, and he had never had a friend like Rachel before. She was something special.

* * *

"Finally," Rachel exclaimed, falling back onto her bedspread with a sigh.

Her room was finished, about an hour later, and she was lying on her back, on the bed. Kurt and Sam shared a look-they had become very good at non-verbal communication by this point in their friendship-and Kurt fell on top of Rachel before Sam jumped onto their pile with a laugh.

"Get off of me, you fat asses! I'm tiny," Rachel giggled as she tried to squirm her way from underneath them. "And to think I was going to treat you losers to lunch and Pinkberry's today as a reward for helping me," She pouted, giving up on her struggle, because after their many years of friendship, she knew it was a hopeless battle. They were too strong and too much bigger than her. She wasn't going to win so she might as well just let it happen.

Of course, the prospect of food had Sam jumping off of Rachel and onto a sitting position besides her, acting as if he hadn't been doing anything wrong. And while Kurt wasn't a typical teenage boy, the prospect of getting a free lunch and dessert from Rachel was too good to pass up, because it was food. So, he rolled off of her and into a sitting position on the other side of her.

Rachel raised herself into a sitting position and rolled her eyes at them.

"I'm just going to brush my hair since you guys ruined it and we can go, okay?" She said, pressing her palms against the bed to push her onto her feet. For an active girl, Rachel was the laziest person either of them had ever met. If she could, she would have Sam carry her everywhere, no matter where they were going.

"Don't you want to stay and wait to meet your new roommate?" Sam asked, tilting his head to the side in confusion.

"I don't know if I have one. They never sent me any information about getting a new one, after all, and normally they send a letter for who your roommate is each year. Even you two get them, and you've been roommates since sixth grade when that homophobic loser David Karofsky refused to room with Kurt because he was gay," Rachel shrugged, making her way towards her desk that was also to be used as a vanity, grabbing her hairbrush and running it through her dark chocolate colored curls a couple of times.

"Then I guess that means the sleepovers can be moved to your room, since you'll have the most space?" Kurt wondered, reaching over to turn off her music.

"You have the pull-out bed!" Rachel stomped her foot in protest.

"Rachel, I sleep with you about ninety five percent of the time when we have sleepovers at home because you refuse to sleep with Kurt because he thrashes around in his sleep too much and I don't like explaining to my parents why I always come home from our sleepovers covered in bruises so I don't want to sleep with him," Sam reminded her with an eye roll.

"Yeah, but you like sleeping with me a little too much. I can feel it," Rachel stuck her tongue out, tossing her brush back onto the desk. "Hand me my purse so we can-wait are you guys staring at?" She cut herself off as she turned around to follow their gaze.

Standing in the doorway was a blonde haired girl and a mohawk-ed boy who looked around their age. The blonde was wheeling two matching Vera Bradley suitcases with a matching weekend bag slung over her arm and yet another matching book bag swung over her other shoulder. She had a Coach bag on the crook of her arm and her matching Coach wallet and make-up bag could be seen from the fact that it wasn't zipped. The boy behind her was obviously her muscle mass and was carrying four boxes, stacked up on top of one another, his face leaning around them so he could see where he was going.

"Brittany, will you just knock it off and let me carry those god damn bags for you? Seriously, I can make more than one trip," The guy was saying, following the blonde into the room completely, not appearing to notice the other people in the room.

"You were carrying those boxes and I am more than capable of carrying my clothes, make-up and hair stuff, Puck! Just put my boxes down and go set up your own room or something." The blonde said, dropping her bags onto her bed and the floor around it, turning towards the male with her arms crossed over her chest.

"Are you done being such a feminist? Seriously, it's a little ridiculous that you have to do everything yourself. Sometimes, it's okay to ask for help, even when you're asking a guy for help because something's too heavy for you or you don't have enough hands or whatever. That's not putting the Women's Right's Movement back, you know," He rolled his eyes, and in doing so, he finally seemed to realize the three teenagers on the other side of the room.

"What are you-"Brittany turned on her heel, following his gaze that hadn't returned to her after his rant was over and her blue eyes filled with shock as they grew wide.

"Hey, I'm Rachel Berry-apparently I'm your roommate, even though the school didn't think to let me know anything about you," Rachel said pleasantly, walking over towards the blonde. "And the blonde Trouty Mouth behind me is Sam Evans-his roommate is the flamboyant looking teen gay, Kurt Hummel who is probably glaring at me right now for being so open about his sexuality, despite the fact that he is wearing a form-fitting sweater that ends at the knee," Rachel explained, getting Kurt's reaction perfectly without even turning around to look at him.

"Brittany Pierce," the blonde said with a small smile on her face. "And the neanderthal who carried in my boxes is my obnoxious step-brother, Noah Puckerman."

"Is he going to be going to school here as well?" Kurt asked, eyes locked on the broad-shouldered, six foot tall male standing at the foot of Brittany's bed with deep hazel eyes and what would be thick, dark chocolate colored curls if he didn't have his head shaved into a mohawk, with an olive complexion and even more muscle mass than Sam.

"Um, yeah, that's why she told him to go set up his dorm," Rachel rolled her eyes at him before turning her attention back to Brittany. "We were going to go grab some lunch-you want anything?" Rachel wondered.

"We're good," Brittany said quickly, shooting her brother a warning glance as soon as she saw him start to open his mouth.

"Alright-we'll be back later and we can have some roommate bonding," Rachel flashed a sweet smile at her as she grabbed her purse, pulling Sam to his feet and dragging him towards the door.

Kurt was lagging behind and the pair knew it wasn't going to be good news, whatever it was he had to say.

"I like your outfit," Kurt said, and Rachel released a sigh of relief.

The girl turned down to smile at her light colored, floral print, belted-ruffle skirt with a smile, adjusting the way her nude-colored, fitted tank top rested at the hem and Rachel could catch a glimpse of a nude-colored cross belly button ring. Her wedges were the same color as her top with a peak toe and her buttery blonde curls fell right past her shoulders.

"But, if you're going to be using a faux-Coach bag...well, I wouldn't even use a Coach bag, because most people assume it's fake, based on how many knock-offs there are. But, that one is definitely fake, so it doesn't matter," Kurt shrugged as he turned around, making his way towards the door to meet an appalled looking Rachel and a snickering Sam, who always found it so funny when Kurt so rudely gave his opinion.

"It's real," Brittany said coldly, all warmth leaving her eyes as she narrowed them at the boy.

Before he could offer a response, Rachel was gripping his arm and pulling him from the room, using her other arm to drag Sam behind her.

"Don't you dare even think about it," Brittany said, whirling around to face her brother.

"Think about what?" He asked innocently.

"About going after Rachel! She's my roommate and I would appreciate her not hating me or having an extremely awkward relationship with her," she crossed her arms over her chest as she glared at him.

"Don't take your anger out on me because that guy recognized a knock-off, Britt," He rolled his eyes. "And who said I'm going to go after Rachel?" He asked with a smirk.

"Because you go after _everybody, _Puck. And I know as well as you do that it's not only going to be a challenge to get Rachel, but you're going to have to deal with that blonde guy, which just makes it even more fun for you! So, just do me this one favor and don't go after her, alright?" She glared at him.

"Whatever, yeah, sure-I won't date your roommate," Puck rolled his eyes, holding his hands up in surrender as he made his way out of her room.

"Good," she nodded.

"But I didn't say I wouldn't hook up with her," he winked over his shoulder before he walked out and down the hallway.

* * *

Kurt lived to play match maker. It was his favorite thing to do in the entire world. He loved knowing that he could take two people and put them in a relationship that would make them happier than they had ever been in his entire life. He couldn't get enough of that feeling and he was known for his relationship advice and the way people constantly came to him when they were looking for love.

But, it was completely humiliating that his two best friends were not only completely single without any form of love, but it was clear to everybody that Sam was head over heels in love with Rachel, yet he was still single.

And the worst part was that he was always trying to push the two of them together.

Take their lunch date that day when they had gone to the nearest Johnny Rockets and Kurt had slid into the booth across from Rachel, immediately spreading himself out and saying he needed space from Sam if he was supposed to be living with him once again. So, Sam had slid into the seat besides Rachel, and like always, his arm found its way around Rachel's shoulder, the way it always did when they were near one another.

After that, Kurt hadn't had to work anymore of his magic because Sam was just a natural flirt, at least when it came to Rachel.

Once their drinks came-Sam's chocolate milkshake, Kurt's strawberry milkshake and Rachel's water, as she was going to true to be a strict vegan for that school year, something she promised herself every year-Sam took to teasing Rachel, trying to convince her to take a sip of his milkshake, because he knew she really wanted to take a sip, or drink the entire thing.

When their meals came-Sam's cheeseburger with bacon, Kurt's hot-dog and Rachel's salad-Sam was teasing her with a piece of bacon, tossing little pieces of the long strips into her salad and trying to dodge her as she threw them back at him, going on about how she was kosher and couldn't eat pork if she was supposed to be a good Jew.

On the way back to Kurt's car, his precious baby, Sam picked Rachel up and slid her onto his back, running towards the car while carrying her piggy-back style. Kurt drove to Pinkberry where Rachel went inside and came back out with all of their favorites and their usual orders. They had worked on eating them as Kurt drove back to campus, parking in his spot near their newest dorm.

"I still can't believe you defended that Fraud-a girl about her faux-Coach bag! I mean, seriously Rachel, I taught you better than to recognize a knock-off. And you know how I get when I see one," Kurt was rambling as they walked away from his Hummer.

"I still can't believe you chose to out her about the bag being a fake within the first five minutes of meeting her. She doesn't seem like the type to laugh it off the way that I would, you know, and I'd be pretty scared of her brother if I were a scrawny teenage boy," Rachel replied as they entered the building, Sam tossing his chocolate yogurt with the all-chocolate toppings into the trash, having just taken his last bite.

"I still can't believe you you guys are still talking about this. Would you mind talking about something a little more my style? Just for a little while? Hell, I'd even be happy with you talking about Broadway and musicals, because at least I can follow that shit!" Sam complained as they approached the elevator, his arm wound around Rachel's shoulders.

"He was _rude," _Rachel insisted.

"Rachel, she was trying to pass a faux off as real. All I did was give her a lesson on knock-offs. I mean, nobody would ever mistake your Dooney and Bourke bag as a fake, because of the quality and the fact that nobody makes them. It's common knock-off knowledge," Kurt rolled his eyes as they stepped onto the elevator.

"Apparently my opinion is invalid," Sam sighed, shaking his head as he hit the button for their floor.

"Has it ever been valid?" Rachel teased, spooning a spoon-full of pomegranate flavored frozen yogurt with blueberries on top into her mouth, ducking out from under the noogie that Sam was aiming her way.

She fell against Kurt, causing him to spill his grapefruit fro-yo with the grapefruit topping and caramelized almonds onto his designer sweater-Rachel had been exaggerating about it being a knee length sweater, as he was no longer in that phase anymore, but had gone through a three-year period where that was all he wore-He swore under his breath as he flicked an almond at her as she ducked once more, allowing the nut to hit Sam right in the chest.

And before the elevator doors opened back up, the trio were laughing hysterically, their previous disagreement completely forgotten. Because that was just how it worked between the three of them. No fight could ever last too long.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Music In Me  
A Glee Fan Fiction  
Chapter 2**

"Please do not hate me for my idiot best friend," Rachel said as she entered her room, tossing her bag onto her bed and heading straight towards her dresser.

Brittany was lying on her bed, legs bent at the knees as she balanced some AP textbook against her legs. She glanced up at her roommate, adjusting the glasses that now covered her green eyes as she frowned at the girl who was searching through her dresser for something or other and who had just disrupted her reading.

"I mean, I tell him every single time he meets somebody that he needs to behave and he can't go on some rant just because not everything their own is authentic and that he isn't the genius he believes himself to be and he can be wrong about whether an item is real or not, and he just nods his head and agrees with me and then the next time we're with somebody who isn't a male, he does exactly what I warned him not to do. Sometimes, I swear that boy doesn't want me to have any female friends," Rachel shook her head, grabbing two pieces of material in her fist and slamming her drawer shut.

Brittany rolled her eyes, pushing her chemistry book aside as she zipped up her grey and black specked Victoria's Secret hoodie that she'd paired over a navy camisole with orange and blue Houston campus shorts, a pair of orange fuzzy socks covering her feet. This girl lacked both a filter and a mute button, and Brittany doubted she'd be able to make it through a month with her, yet alone an entire school year. But she had to tough it out so she might as well make the best of it.

"It's whatever-I mean, my brother's the exact same way. He's so tactless sometimes," the blonde shrugged.

Rachel carried her things into her closet, resuming their conversation.

"Sam's a sweetheart, but Kurt? I swear that kid was born without a filter. He speaks his mind, which is great, but it's a little embarrassing when he gets rude, like he did before. I mean, honestly, I couldn't tell if it was fake or not and I couldn't care less. If you say it's real, I'm gonna believe you, though, because it doesn't affect me and it makes no difference," Rachel said, pushing open her closet door and stepping out.

"What's the deal with you and Sam? Or is that too personal?" she wondered.

"Sammy and me? Oh, we're just best friends. And don't worry about getting too personal-we're gonna be living together so we might as well get to know one another, shouldn't we?" Rachel asked, pulling on a pink zip-up hoodie over her pink tank top that she'd paired with yoga shorts and pink fuzzy socks. She fell onto her bed and pulled her legs up under her.

"Your friend Kurt doesn't like me very much," Brittany said slowly.

"Kurt's friends with whoever I tell him we're friends with, because he's afraid I'm gonna ditch him or something. Besides, it's not that he doesn't like you. He has problems with fake anything," Rachel shrugged. "We should get to know at least the basics, and if we want to be friends, we're friends. If we aren't, that's whatever," she went on.

"You're a little too nice to be believable. I feel like you should come with a warning that says to proceed with caution," Brittany said slowly.

"Sammy says the exact same thing!" Rachel said brightly.

* * *

Noah Puckerman did not fall for girls. He didn't do relationships and he didn't do love. If he dated a girl, it was because she was good in bed and he wanted a little more of that action, and all of his relationships were with people who understood that it was all about the sex. He didn't care about personality or depth. He cared about looks.

Which was why it didn't make sense that he couldn't get that Rachel chick out of his head.

Sure, she was definitely a solid nine on a scale of Chloe to Kim Kardashian, and she had those Jewish good looks the girls at Temple had until they turned sixteen and got a nose job for their birthday from their rich parents. She had curves that could break necks and the clothes she wore teased him in more ways than one. But there was nothing about her that made her look easy-she was the type of girl who was clearly waiting until marriage, and that was something Puck didn't do.

Maybe it was just the fact that he had always been one to like a challenge, and if he got to mess with another guy's head while trying to get a girl that usually wouldn't spare him a second glance, it was even better. But there was something that made it impossible to get her off of his mind, and that was killing him.

The entire time he had set up his dorm room, his thoughts had been focused on her, and he'd spent the entire day lying on his bed, tossing a football, catching it, and repeating the process, while she ran through his head in that tiny little pink tank top she'd been wearing that broadcasted that brunettes did it better-and since, in his past experience, he'd only really been with blondes, or girls who had bleached their hair to be blondes, he was more than willing to give that hypothesis a shot. Especially if it would annoy that blonde haired surfer kid who was hanging around her.

"Hey-Noah Puckerman, right?" a voice broke Puck out of his Rachel-centered thoughts and he shot up on his bed, the football landing on his bed and bouncing onto the floor as he studied the newcomer to his room.

The kid was tall, with the build of a safety for a football team. He had jet black hair and dark eyes. He was Asian and every bit as tall as Puck was, and he was wearing the football jersey that Puck had gotten as soon as he'd arrived around his neck as he carried two boxes full of stuff and had a large duffel bag swung over his shoulder as he entered the room with the ease of a cat.

"Call me Noah and you're dead. You're Mike Chang?" He asked as the kid dropped his stuff onto the bed.

"Oh, right-you prefer Puck. Yeah, I'm Mike," He smiled at him, beginning to unpack.

Puck laid back against his pillows, ignoring the fallen football. He was trying to think of a casual way of seeing if this guy knew who Rachel was and what he could tell him about her, because if Puck was going to get her, he was going to need to know a thing or two about her, particularly her relationship status with a particular blonde haired surfer boy.

"Oh, I heard you met Rachel Berry," Mike said, removing his clothes from his bad and into his dresser. "Apparently Sam was at Johnny Rockets-a ton of the football players work there-and he was complaining to Kurt about this new guy. They text me, because they figured it was my roommate-this place only takes in so many new kids each year, after all," Mike explained.

"How does Sam complaining about me have to do with me meeting Rachel?" Puck asked the question that was bothering him the least first. He mostly wanted to know what Sam had been saying about him, but that would look like he cared and he didn't want people to think he cared about what others thought of him. That ruined the image he was trying to build.

"He's always with her-never leaves her side. And if he's not with her, he's with Kurt or Kurt's with her. The three of them are like a cult or something. They transferred together from their old school and they don't let anybody else in unless they all agree-but Rachel's word is law. They both do whatever she says. If Kurt wasn't gay, everybody would probably think she's banging them to get them to listen to her like that. Well, the stupid people might-everybody else knows Rachel thinks of them as brothers," Mike went on.

"So she's not dating Sam?" Puck asked casually.

"Nah," Mike shook his head. "He wishes she was-he's had a crush on her for years. He turned down Quinn Fabray for her. He even turned down Santana Lopez, but that wasn't too surprising to everybody, since Santana and Rachel were best friends at the time," Mike filled Puck in on the gossip of the trio.

"There's four of them? I thought you said the three of them were always together?" Puck wondered.

"For the longest time, Santana was their fourth wheel so they were a car or whatever metaphor they used. But she transferred out before the end of last year and Sam threatens anybody who mentions her in front of Rachel. She was really torn up about it-apparently there was this big fight or something," Mike shrugged.

"Interesting," Puck said, leaning over the edge of his bed to retrieve his football, resuming his game of tossing the ball towards the ceiling, catching it, and repeating the process.

* * *

"When are you going to grow a pair and ask her out?" Kurt asked Sam as they changed into their pajamas.

Any other straight male sharing a room with a gay teenage boy would probably change in the bathroom or when he wasn't in the room to avoid any awkward situations. But, Sam wasn't like any other straight teenager. If he was, he would have made a big deal about sharing a room with Kurt when he came out of the closet like his original roommate had done halfway through their sixth grade year. Which was why it wasn't weird for Sam to strip off his shirt and pull on one of the few baggy tee shirts Rachel hadn't stolen from him or to remove his jeans and replace them with a pair of athletic shorts.

Just like it wasn't a big deal for Kurt to take off his many layers of designer clothing and replace them with comfortable pajamas in front of Sam. The blonde was aware that not only was he not Kurt's type, but that Kurt had never once even thought about him that way before. So, why should Sam assume that Kurt was going to check him out? It was just like when they had sleepovers with Rachel and she'd change in front of them or they'd change in front of her-except Sam would try to sneak a peak with Rachel.

They were so close to one another, it didn't matter. They were practically a family-even if Sam longed for just a little bit more with Rachel. Rachel saw the boys as brothers-a fact Sam hated to remember-and Kurt saw them as siblings. Sam even considered Kurt to be his brother. But Rachel most definitely was not his sister. Not with how he thought of her.

It wasn't that he had dirty thoughts about Rachel-he threatened any other guy who thought of Rachel that way, so how could he do just that? But he longed for a chance to be Rachel's boyfriend.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sam lied smoothly, shaking his head.

"You were staring at Rachel all day and you're annoyed that there's a new hot piece of ass on campus now that's going to become a part of Rachel's life. And don't argue that you aren't jealous of that Puck guy, because you didn't shut up about him the entire time Rachel was in the bathroom at Johnny Rockets or while she was inside getting fro-yo at Pinkberry's," Kurt rolled his eyes. "And you were ten times more flirtatious with her today than I have ever seen you before. I was tempted to make you a sign that said Captain Obvious," He replied as he fell onto his bed, hugging a throw pillow to his chest.

"I wouldn't ask out Rachel. For two reasons-and the first is that I don't like her like that. The second is that I wouldn't do anything to mess up the friendship the three of us have," Sam replied as he crawled into his own bed.

"The only true part of that you said was that you don't want to mess up our friendship, and I actually honor you for that. But the match-maker in me who only wants Rachel to be happy has to say that you're a complete and total idiot," Kurt said, throwing his pillow across the room, right into Sam's face, causing him to fall back at the shock of Kurt's actions.

"Kurt, I like her, okay? But she's not going out with me so I might as well just move on and get over it. You remember what she said when Santana asked me out last year? She told Santana that she shouldn't be too upset, because it wasn't because I wasn't interested-which it totally was-but it was because I just didn't want to risk our friendship. She said that none of us could ever date because we were like family." Sam groaned.

"You do realize that you turning down Santana was a major cause of everything that went down between them last year, right?" Kurt raised his eyebrows. "Because no matter what Rachel said, the entire school knew it was because of your crush on her. I'm honestly surprised Santana ever made a move on you when she knew how you felt," Kurt sighed.

"Can we stop talking about her? Because she makes me want to break all my rules about never hitting a girl," Sam said, clenching his fists tightly.

"Alright, we will talk about you asking Rachel out instead," Kurt stuck his tongue out.

* * *

"So, that's the story of how Sammy and Kurtie and I all became best friends," Rachel said brightly, finishing up her hour-long story about how the three of them became who they were today. And she had told Quinn the shortest version she possibly knew. "Your turn-tell me something about you, and something that's actually about, well, you, 'cause that was the best way to describe me there possibly is," She beamed brightly as she leaned back against her Victoria's Secret body pillow.

"If I tell you this, you have to promise not to tell anybody, alright?" Brittany said without a moment of hesitation. It was clear she wanted to tell the story, but that she wasn't sure she could trust anybody enough to tell then.

"The only people I have to tell are Kurtie and Sammy, and I don't tell them anything my girl best friend tells me in confidence," Rachel assured her with a smile that caused the blonde to stop for a minute, a thoughtful expression on her face before she smiled right back at Rachel, nodding once in confirmation at the brunette.

"Best friends...I like that," She smiled. "Anyways-I'm here on a scholarship. So is Puck, actually. We're not poor or lower middle class or anything, we're pretty well off, actually," Brittany explained.

"But my father is super religious. My step-mom is much more liberal, which is the only reason I got to come here in the first place. I was home schooled for most of my life and I wanted a change, so I applied here. I got in, but my parents wouldn't pay because the thought of me living in a co-ed dorm halfway across the country from my parents at a co-ed school that wasn't even Catholic totally freaked my dad out. So, I applied for a scholarship and I got in for cheerleading and my grades, thank god.," She stopped there and took a breath before she continued.

"Anyways, my dad didn't really care about Puck going, especially since he knew that my step-mom was going to get the final say in whether Puck went or not anyways. He's only on a partial scholarship anyways, since my dad was willing to pay for most of his tuition. It's a double standard, but it's mostly because he feels like Puck's the son he always wanted and he knows that Puck's mother is actually the final say in anything he does in life. Anyways, I couldn't go, but Puck knew how much it meant to me-this entire thing was my idea, after all. So, his mom talked my dad into letting me come on a one-year trial basis. If I kept my grades up, stayed on the cheerleading team, remained a virgin and didn't get into any trouble with boys, alcohol, drugs or partying, I could stay for the rest of my high school experience." she explained in a rush.

"That's nothing to be ashamed of, you know. Sammy and Kurt are here on scholarships, and it's because they can't afford to come any other way-well, Kurt's father would have figured out a way to come up with the tuition if he could have gotten a partial scholarship, and Sam's parents would have figured something out, but Kurt was blessed enough to be offered a full ride. Sam...wasn't so lucky," Rachel bit down on her bottom lip, and Brittany got the impression that she had said too much.

"But...how's he here than?" She asked. "Or did his parents have to figure something out?"

"Oh, no, he ended up with a full scholarship. What he doesn't know is that at first, he didn't get it. He got a partial one, but I know him and I knew he wouldn't let his parents pay for him to come to such an expensive school when the public school was fine, it just wouldn't look as pretty on a college resume. Anyways, I was offered a full scholarship and my fathers made me refuse because they didn't want me taking the spot from somebody who really needed it. When I rejected it, I asked if there was any way it could go to Sam," Rachel whispered. "He doesn't know and he can never know. He hates it when I do things for him," She said hurriedly.

"That's sweet, that you care about him so much," Brittany said softly.

"I love him-he's my best friend. And I know he's going to be depending on a college scholarship to go to college. Being at a school with such amazing academics and such a great football team is going to really help him out, especially with all the opportunities this school offers him. He'll stand out much more than if he'd stayed in Ohio," Rachel rolled her eyes.

"There's nothing else going on between the two of you?" Brittany wondered, raising her eyebrows.

"No, of course not-he's like my brother. It would be disgusting," She made a face. "Anyways, I feel like I cut you off. Finish your story?" She offered.

"Right, well, because my father is so strict, he refuses to spend a ton of money on me to have anything that could spoil me. I have what is needed to survive and that is all. That's why I carry around the fake Coach bag. With my allowance, that's what I can afford if I don't save up and I live in a super wealthy neighborhood. The only people I know are the spoiled brats that go to my church and they have everything. They're just too stupid to recognize a knock-off, so I've been getting away with it. I'm not poor, I do have money. But back in my hometown, I appear to be poor. I'm tired of being the pauper in a place full of princes and princesses," She sighed.

"Did you know that twenty five percent of the kids here are on full scholarships and there are another twenty five percent who are on partial scholarships? The other fifty is half made up of kids who's parents work around the clock so they can afford the tuition. There's only about twenty five percent of the students have parents that can easily afford the tuition and sent their kids here because they want to be here, or because they don't want to worry about their kids for the majority of the year," Rachel informed her.

"Seriously?"

"Britt, it's nothing to be ashamed of. Everybody has something in their life that they aren't crazy about, but that's what makes us human. Our flaws," Rachel replied.

"What's your flaw?" She asked.

"Well, I went out and sweet-talked my way into getting a belly button ring-of course, I did have a fake ID, but they seemed iffy about believing it," She rolled her eyes. "And I have a tattoo-nothing all that bad, just a couple of gold stars in a shooting star pattern on my back," She shrugged.

"No way!" Brittany gasped.

"I went through a rebellious phase-my dads still don't know," Rachel shrugged. "Sammy hates it-he hates it when girls have any sort of a piercing on anything other than the one on their ears and he despises tattoos," She rolled her eyes.

"Something tells me that no matter what you did, that boy would still love it," Brittany said with a knowing smile.

* * *

There was something about Rachel Berry that just pulled a person in and made it close to impossible to hate her, ever. She was nice to everybody and she always had a smile to greet people with. She listened to other people's problems and she offered advice, without making everything about her-of course, that last part had taken years of training from Kurt and Sam, who had gotten tired of her making everything end up revolving around her, because as special as she was, even she wasn't that special. But, still, there was something about Rachel that pulled people in and forced them to like her.

Brittany had plenty of reasons ti dislike her, after all. While they both came from wealthy families with fathers who could buy them whatever they wanted, Rachel was the one who ended up being spoiled rotten and receiving everything she asked for. Her fathers seemed to go out of the way to give her whatever she wanted, and the only thing that she considered to be her flaw was that she had gone behind her fathers' backs and gotten a belly button ring and a tattoo, both of which were something that one of her best friends hated and refused to acknowledge her ever having gotten done.

Sam could easily hate her for getting everything she wanted in life so easily, while he had to work his ass off to afford the things that he wanted. And maybe his parents would help him out, but he refused to ask them for help, because he knew what the financial situation was for them, and he wasn't going to make them feel bad about themselves because they had to say no to him and his younger siblings from time to time. He could hate Rachel with a cold dying passion because whatever she wanted was merely handed to her as soon as the request left her lips and she usually got something extra as well.

And Kurt could hate her for being so talented that every time there was a solo or a lead, Rachel got it, because her voice was the best voice a high school student could ever even dream of having. He could hate her because she could easily afford the newest trends in designer clothing, yet she opted to buy clothing from cheaper stores, even if the clothes were nice and lasted forever and looked similar to the expensive designers. He could hate her for having the full support of her fathers in whatever she did, while his father made awkward attempts at trying to understand and support him in all that he tried and did.

Mike probably wished that he could hate her, since all he had heard about since entering his room and bringing her name up was her. Puck hadn't shut his mouth about Rachel Berry since he had met Mike, and while Mike had been the one to bring her up, he hadn't wanted to spend hours on the topic. Besides, he had been going to school with her since sixth grade and he didn't have half as much to say about her as Puck seemed to have to say, and he had only met her one time for about five minutes, while she had been talking to his sister, rather than himself, and surrounded by her guardian angel Sam Evans and her gay best friend Kurt Hummel.

And Puck wanted to hate her more than anybody because she was making him act like a pussy. She was all that he could think about, so when he and Mike started talking to get to know one another, she was all that he was able to talk about. She took over everything that he was and that was where his focus went. It disgusted him and he wanted to hate her for the way she looked in shorts and the way the words on her shirt had teased her with their meaning and how they were stretched across her chest. He wanted to hate her for the way her hair fell into her face and how long her legs seemed for a short girl.

But the problem was, she was impossible to hate.

Brittany couldn't hate her because she was just so understanding.

Sam couldn't hate her because she was so humble and modest.

Kurt couldn't hate her because she was so god damn adorable.

Mike couldn't hate her because she was always so nice to everyone.

And Puck? He couldn't hate her and he couldn't figure out why.

There was nothing about her besides a hot body that should keep him so enticed.

Yet, there he was, at one thirty in the morning with only her running through his mind.

He had apologized to Mike for ranting about her and made the excuse it was because she was the only girl he'd seen since his arrival.

Mike had known it wasn't the truth just as much as Puck had known it wasn't true.

But neither of them had said anything and hey chose to accept that and move on.

Because if they didn't, they would have a reason to hate her.

And with a reason, they would need an excuse for why they couldn't hate her.

That was the god damn problem with Rachel Berry! Everybody wanted to hate her because she was overly ambitious and over bearing. She was talented and she knew it, constantly making sure that everybody remembered that about her as soon as they had met her. She was filthy stinking rich and carried around expensive, designer accessories.

She just made it so easy to hate her, with the way she gave compliments wrapped around an insult. She couldn't let somebody know they had done well without telling them at least three ways they could improve for the next time. And she couldn't listen to somebody talk without putting in her own story about the topic to get some attention.

But, nobody could say they hated her. They could say they didn't particularly like her-if they were stretching the truth a little. They could say that they weren't her friend, and be telling the full, honest truth. But they knew as well as the people they were talking to and they didn't hate her, and they never would be able to hate her.

While she made herself so easy to hate, she made herself seem so hard to hate at the same time. Because to hate her for her many faults would be a shame when that meant they didn't like her despite all of her wonderful traits. She was full of oxymorons and contradictions. There was nothing about her that made any sense.

And that was the reason behind the lack of people who hated her.

She was just so human that nobody could admit to hating her. She had her flaws and she accepted them. As you got to know her, she would verbally make them all known to you, because she wasn't ashamed of them. She would be the first to let you know that her faults made her who she was.

Rachel Berry was one of the most human-like people in the world, because for every good thing about her, she had a fault to keep it in check. She was full of checks and balances, and it was that quality in her that made it so impossible to hate her.


	3. Chapter 3

**The Music In Me  
A Glee AU Fan Fiction  
Chapter 3**

"Are you thinking about joining any clubs?" Rachel asked the next morning. She was already up, sitting at her desk with her make-up mirror out as she worked on putting on some make-up, her hair twisted into a braid, falling wet down her back, to keep it out of the way, dressed in her bathrobe. As soon as Brittany was rolling over to get out of bed, she started asking questions.

"Between cheerleading and keeping up straight A's, I'm going to have my hands full," Brittany chuckled, walking towards her closet to grab her shower stuff and a change of clothes.

"Oh, come on-you'll have time for one club, right?" She asked, turning around to face Brittany with her eyes sparkling in hope, her mouth turned downwards into a pout.

The expression was all too familiar to Brittany, as her step-brother was infamous for his puppy dog pout. It was the pout that got him any girl he wanted, because they felt like they couldn't say no to a guy who was so adorable. It was the same pout that made even Brittany's super-strict father cave and give him close to free range. And it was the same pout that got Brittany to forgive him every single time he did something to made her angry or annoyed.

She knew that she should be immune to it by now, since Puck had been her step-brother since she was in the third grade, but she had never been able to refuse him of anything once his hazel eyes started to water and his usual arrogant smirk faded away into a sad little pout, no matter how badly she wanted to stay angry at him so he'd have to apologize.

And seeing that face on Rachel, who appeared to be so innocent and pure, was like seeing it on a puppy that was in the pound because its previous owners had abused it. It broke Brittany's heart and forced her to give in.

"What club are you in?" She relented. "I'll think about it," She said with a sigh, giving up on trying to pick out an outfit when she had just woken up and merely taking her robe and her bag with all of her shower stuff.

"I'm in the drama club-our fall musical is _Once Upon a_ Mattress-and I'm in the Glee club. You should join Glee! It doesn't take up much time-just an hour on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It's so much fun and we go to competitions and stuff. We're a pretty impressive club, if I do say so myself," Rachel said excitedly, turning back to her mirror.

Brittany probably should have figured that one out. That was exactly what she was thinking as she made her way from her room, shaking her head, walking right into a very solid figure of a very blonde male. A very blonde _shirtless _male, to be exact.

"Hey, is Rachel up?" Sam asked with a grin aimed down at the tall blonde female, arms on her shoulders to help her regain her balance. "We were supposed to leave for our early morning jog five minutes ago and she never met me," He frowned, reaching up and running a hand through his blonde hair that just looked _oh _so soft.

"She's awake-she's still getting ready, though," Brittany frowned, biting her bottom lip.

There was something about Sam Evans that made Brittany's heart stop, right before it began to beat just a little bit faster. He was absolutely, one hundred percent, perfect. And he wasn't anything she had ever considered in a guy before.

Sure, he was gorgeous, but Brittany had never thought to see herself with a blonde. Especially one with hair that fell into his eyes the way a golden retriever's might. He was average height and scrawny, despite the obvious muscle he was displaying with how shirtless he was at the moment. Brittany had always figured she would be with a handsome guy, just a few inches taller than herself so that she could wear heels. A guy who was pretty tall, to sum it up. She'd assumed he would have obvious muscles, the way her brother and all of his friends did, with dark hair and even darker eyes, a classy guy who was always well put together.

Yet whatever it was she was feeling towards Sam immediately had her heart melting and beating at a pace that was faster than light. She wanted him more than she'd ever wanted any movie star or singer before. He was the type of guy that she could see herself risking her father's disdain and anger for, because he was just so sweet and appeared to be so clueless. He was goofy, in a way that Brittany wished she could allow herself to be as well.

But, Sam was into Rachel, even if her roommate failed to realize that, or at least admit it aloud. So, Brittany was just going to have to suffer in silence. Besides, for all the blonde knew, she was only feeling something like that for him because he was the most unique person she had ever met in her entire life and he was different from all the other boys she had met before, causing her to feel as if, to properly disband herself from her father and became her own person, rather than the picture-perfect daughter he bragged about her being and the flawless teenager that her brother teased her about being, she needed to go all out and do something completely unlike her old self-she needed to fall for a guy who was different from her in every way, from religion to how strict he was about his religion and even what her type had always been.

"I set my alarm an hour early for her and she slept in thinking I'd be late? Oh, this is gonna be one hilarious reaction-Kurt's gonna be pissed he missed it. You wanna come watch her freak out?" He offered, raising an eyebrow suggestively, tempting her to say yes.

But, she needed to get ready if she wasn't going to miss her tour of the campus and her cheerleading meeting. They had tours throughout the day, but her meeting was supposed to take up the rest of the day after it started and if she went after the meeting she would be too tired to remember a thing. So she had about an hour to get ready if she wanted to learn her way around the campus that would-hopefully-be her home for the next three years.

"I have to get ready. I have a tour in a little while," Brittany frowned.

"What? My best friend's roommate is taking a _scheduled _tour? No, I can't allow that. I'd be completely embarrassed. Listen, Rachel and I are going to go for a jog and that'll take us about an hour. So, you get all dressed up and prettied up and when we get back here and Rachel runs off to smell good and head off to her drama club meeting with Kurt to talk about final plans for the musical or whatever it is they do, I'll take you for a tour and it'll be the best damn tour you've ever had because you'll learn the shortcuts those kiss-asses who give the tours don't tell you about," Sam winked.

"Well, my tour was supposed to start in an hour...but I'm not gonna have a crazy amount of time. I have a cheerleading meeting at four," She bit her bottom lip.

"I promise I'll have you to your meeting on time. I have a football meeting at that time anyways," Sam assured her, giving her a nod as he opened the door to her room and walked inside. Brittany could hear Rachel exclaim in surprise before the door shut behind him again.

All she could do was smile as she made her way towards the showers. Maybe it wasn't a date, but it was the closest she'd ever come to one before, and she was going to enjoy every last second of it, especially since it was with a certain blonde haired cutie she couldn't wait to get to know just a little bit better. And some time with him without Rachel that he was offering meant he wanted to be her friend for reasons outside of Rachel. And that gave her hope-more hope than it should have, but she didn't want to dwell on that fact too much. She was too busy planning what she was going to wear for her not-date with Sam Evans.

* * *

"You're early!" She accused Sam as he walked into the room and towards her bed, plopping down on top of it.

"Actually, you're late," He corrected, rolling his eyes at her freshly made up face and her sky high ponytail. She might appear ready from her neck up, but she was still wearing her bathrobe and slippers. "We were supposed to meet about ten minutes ago," He replied.

"Yeah, well, you'er always late so I told you I wanted to go half an hour before I really wanted to, assuming you wouldn't be ready until then anyways. Clearly you have became a much more punctual person since the last time we had these early morning jogs. My mistake and I'll remember that in the future." She said, ending her statement with heavy sarcasm dripping her voice as she undid her robe, allowing it to fall to the floor.

Normally, Sam would look away from her nearly naked body-a pair of Victoria's Secret yoga-short underwear and a sports bra-but he couldn't bring himself to pretend to be shy around her when she wasn't modest around him. If she hadn't realized his feelings by now, he was going to further her belief that he didn't like her as more than a friend. And if she knew how he really felt and was still choosing to strip down to her underwear in front of him on a daily basis, well, he was going to take that as a sign that he was more than welcome to stare. Besides, if he and Kurt could change in front of one another, why couldn't Rachel do the same?

And by the way she was slowly shimmering into her pink cotton shorts and babbling on about something he should probably be paying more attention to as she walked around the room without a shirt on, grabbing her deodorant and putting that on, applying lotion to her legs, putting on her socks and her sneakers, tying the laces, she clearly didn't care that he was paying her any attention instead of looking away from her. This wasn't the first time she had changed in front of him, after all, and she clearly didn't seem to notice anything different from this time around from all of the other times. He wasn't going to make a big deal about it, he decided, as she pulled on her cut-off tank top, which had once been a tee-shirt that was just a little too familiar to him.

"Is that my _shirt?" _Sam asked, eyes widening in horror as he took in the sight in front of him. Not only was one of his favorite tee shirts-which had been a gift from Rachel in the first place-now cut into a tank top without any sides for Rachel's pleasure, but it was cut across the hem as well so that it showed just enough of her stomach. And as if that wasn't bad enough, she had applied glitter to the shirt as well. And it had always been a very masculine shirt. Now, it looked like it had never been meant for a male to be wearing-at least, not if the male was a guy like Sam, rather than a guy like Kurt. It was sparkly and small and absolutely destroyed. And he should probably be used to that by now from how she treated all of his shirts she stole. "What did you _do _to it?" He gaped.

"I applied some glitter to the lettering in DIE, because it was from Disney World. Sammy, I bought you this shirt and you made fun of it for being girly because the D resembled the one in Disney. When I slept over during the summer and needed to borrow a shirt to sleep in, you offered it to me and when I said I would return it, you told me not to worry about it. I thought that meant I could keep it. So, I made a few adjustments so that it wouldn't drown me if I ever had an occasion to wear it other than your bedroom, Kurt's bedroom or my own bedroom," She rolled her eyes, hands planted firmly on her hips.

"You are _such _an Indian Giver," He rolled his eyes, chuckling under his breath as he stood up. "Come on-let's go. I told Brittany I'd give her a tour of the school after our jog, and we both have meetings at four," He insisted, heading towards the door, holding it open for her to exit before him. What? He was a gentleman-and her walking in front of him allowed for an excellent view of her ass, while making him seem as if he were super polite.

"Oh? You and Britt are gonna hang out without me there? Does somebody have a crush?" She teased as they started to walk, nudging him slightly with her shoulder. "You never tell me anything anymore," She tease-pouted at him.

"Oh, get over yourself. I don't have a crush," He insisted. It was only a partial lie, but since she wasn't asking about herself, it wasn't a lie at all.

"Whatever-did you at least tell Kurt that we were going for a jog this time?" Rachel asked as they stepped on the elevator.

"I haven't seen him all morning. When I left to take a shower, he was still asleep and when I got back to the room, he was gone already, probably to make breakfast. When I went to make breakfast he wasn't there and the second time I got to the room, he still wasn't there." Sam shrugged.

"If he shows up at my room banging on the door for the entire hour that we are jogging, asking where the hell you vanished to, again, I am going to kill you. You really should start leaving him a note or something so he doesn't start sending out 911 worthy search parties for us after he calls in for an Amber Alert." Rachel glared at him. "And I still don't see why you can't invite him along on these jogs," She replied.

"You over estimate him," Sam rolled his eyes. "His search parties are not worthy of the police, because they are one man search parties that consist of himself banging on the room to your dorm for an hour when he knows you would answer on the first knock, unless you were asleep. And he's too stupid to call our cell phones to see if we would even give him an answer, so the Amber Alerts would be completely senseless, especially when all he'd have to do was ask somebody in the dorm or the dorm security guard on duty if they saw us and where we went," Sam explained to her. "Besides, after the fifth time, he should catch on."

"Sam! I thought you and Kurt got over that petty jealousy back in the fourth grade when I insisted that you both had cooties so you might as well be one another's best friend because I couldn't be friends with either of you if you were going to contaminate me with your cooties _and _force me to endure hours of you bickering back and forth over who my best friend really was while you both let out every single secret I ever told either of you, which made me wonder if I should ever trust you the same way again. Because if we're going back to that, I will stop hanging out with the both of you and either high tail it back to Lima or start hanging out with Brittany and only Brittany. I won't deal with it again," Rachel assured him with a scolding look to her face that told him she was serious.

"We're not fighting over you. I invited him the first three times we went and he said no because he didn't have the proper workout wardrobe. I mean, all he had to do was slip on some shorts and a tee shirt, but no! He has to look like he's walking a runway or something for everything that he does, even taking a god damn run around campus. When I offered to let him borrow something, he laughed in my face and said he wouldn't wear my clothes because it would ruin the entire reputation he took him years to build with just one outfit. Can you believe the nerve of him?" Sam asked in outrage, before changing his tune after a warning glance from Rachel. "And could you picture Kurt jogging with us, let along trying to keep up with us?" Sam asked her with a teasing smile on his face which she returned as they exited the dorm.

* * *

"RACHEL! RACHEL! RACHEL!" Kurt was screaming when Brittany found him after her shower, banging on the girls' dorm room door with a determined look on his face, despite the panic in his eyes as he shouted for the girl he thought was within.

"Kurt!" Brittany said, reaching out and grabbing his arm, stopping him in his steps. "What are you doing? Rachel isn't even in there. She and Sam went for a jog a little while ago," She said slowly as Kurt lowered his arm and his expression turned from worried to angry. She took that as a good sign and unlocked her door, twisting the knob open and walking inside, only a little bit surprised when Kurt walked in with her.

"That bastard-he does this every time and he never lets me know so I come back and find him missing!" Kurt muttered as he sat down on Rachel's bed. "Do you care if I wait here for her to come back? We have plans and I don't feel like returning to my room just to come back in a few minutes," Kurt sighed.

"Well, I have to get dressed...Sam's giving me a tour of the school," She frowned.

"Ooh! Somebody has a crush," Kurt said, eyes focused on her face and Brittany bit her lip, already knowing that she hadn't been able to hold in the blush she'd felt coming. "It's okay-I won't tell anybody. This is exactly what Sam needs right now! Can I pick out your outfit?" He asked excitedly, already on his way to her closet.

Brittany figured from there she didn't really have a chance to argue with him, so she just let him go. Besides, judging from his own style, the guy clearly knew what he was talking about in terms of fashion. So far be it for Brittany to stand in the way of him attempting to make her look the absolute best that she could ever look.

"I'll even pick out your make-up and tell you how to do that and your hair. I do this for Rachel all the time," Kurt assured her as he searched through her clothes.

Brittany was beginning to like this guy.

* * *

"Well, the outfit and the hair and the make-up are all perfect. I love every bit of it," Kurt beamed at his masterpiece, beginning to give Brittany a once over of her blue crop top and gingham blue and white skirt, pausing at her bare belly button. "Fuck, you do have it pierced," He swore.

"What's wrong with-Sam hates piercings," Brittany bit her bottom lip.

"He has a crush on Rachel and has for years. Clearly he doesn't mind them that much. He thinks that girls with them are sluts, so he doesn't like that the girls he's overprotective about have them, because he believes it gives other guys the wrong ideas. Do you have any dorky ones? Probably not, you strike me as a very religious and very girly type of person, whether it's by choice or not. Let me check-Sam might have gotten Rachel one when I forced him to buy her a couple when she first got it done." He sighed, making his way to Rachel's side of the room and searching through her jewelry box.

"Are you sure she's going to be okay with me borrowing her stuff?" Brittany wondered.

"Of course she is-she's never even worn any of the ones that Sam bought her-she said they were too nerdy for her. Besides, Rachel's all about sharing with her friends," Kurt rolled his eyes as he walked back with a grayish blue circular charm with HALO written in black print. He handed it to her, still on its cardboard backboard. "Sam loves video games-his macbook has a detail of Mario on it," Kurt let her known as if it were some big secret.

"Why are you helping me like this? Wouldn't you want Sam and Rachel together?" Brittany asked, accepting the charm and putting it through her belly button. "They are your best friends, after all."

"I want them both to be happy and if Rachel settles for Sam, who isn't her type at all, she's never going to be happy. And if Sam spends the rest of his life hoping that she's going to return his feelings one day, he's never going to be happy because he will never get a chance at love." Kurt shrugged his shoulders, reaching out to adjust her head wrap that looked just a little too adorable with her outfit. Kurt was a big fan of head wraps. "Besides, I love playing match maker and the two of you would be the perfect couple." Kurt shrugged his shoulders.

"What is Rachel's type?" Brittany asked cautiously and Kurt got the impression that there was a reason for the question, but he wasn't going to pry-not yet, anyways.

"She likes guys who are into music and who treat their girl like a princess. She's really into the 1980's stereotype of a relationship-the type of guy who seems like the exact opposite of the girl on the exterior, but when it comes to their likes and dislikes, they're like clones. And she loves when the girl's entire life is spent trying to impress her and prove that he deserves her, even though everybody always figured they'd be together all along," Kurt said, his tone implying that Rachel's taste bored him to no end.

Brittany let out the breath she had been holding on relief, grateful that, according to Kurt, Rachel would never go for Puck. And, since Rachel had never given Sam a chance because he wasn't her type, Puck wouldn't be able to win her over the way he did every other girl. Soon enough, he'd get bored and give up, meaning Brittany wouldn't have to worry about losing her newest best friend and the friends that would come with Rachel-or the potential boyfriend.

"Oh, and then there's her weird fetus about guys who drive pick-up trucks or motorcycles. She's also a sucker for green eyes," Kurt added on carelessly as the door opened and Brittany's eyes grew wide with panic.

Puck had hazel eyes, which weren't true green, but tended to look greener than most hazel eyes, especially when he wore that color. Besides that, he drove a Chevy pick-up truck in a deep shade of rust-red and he had a motorcycle that he lived for riding whenever the family took a trip up to camp for the weekend. It wasn't much, but it was enough to cause Brittany to panic.

* * *

"Kurt, I'm not changing my outfit again. This is fine," Rachel rolled her eyes as she fell back onto her bed as if she were exhausted.

Honestly, her-fifth-outfit was perfectly fine. A pair of denim jeans with a floral pattern on the front and a pale pink crop top paired with pink sandals with the slightest wedge and one of her favorite Dooney and Bourke purses completed the look while a rose-pink head wrap held her curly locks into place.

"Will you at least put on this belly button ring. I am deeply insulted that you have never worn it," Kurt replied with a teasing hint to his voice as he held out the silver bunny-shaped charm to her.

The brunette girl got up, rising into a sitting position as she accepted the charm from her best friend. She made a face as she accepted it and switched it out from her previous ring.

"I can't believe you got my a Playboy Bunny ring and want me to wear it, just because Jesse is going to be at the meeting. Seriously, we broke up and that's all there is to it," Rachel rolled her eyes again, rising to her full height. "How'd you even know this was in there and that I never wore it? I was hoping you would have forgotten you bought it for me," She sighed.

Kurt smirked at her, flashing her a knowing look before ducking down and searching through his messenger bag from something.

"I was going through your box for one to let Brittany borrow-she's got a thing for Sam and she's got it bad. I thought if I let her borrow one of those nerdy ones he got you that you refuse to wear, it would be a step in the right direction. She happens to _like _me picking out her clothes," He stuck his tongue out, pulling a perfectly wrapped gold star-patterned box from his bag.

Rachel's eyes lit up at the sight of the package and her hands were immediately forward, silently begging for the package. Kurt rolled his eyes as he slipped it into her hands and she tore into it, eagerly opening it. When she could see what had been inside, her eyes widened and she jumped to her feet, racing towards Kurt and wrapping him in a tight hug.

For he had just purchased her a walkman-styled phone case in her favorite color. She had been searching for a walkman forever, as she loved the retro music device, and Kurt and Sam were constantly buying her walkman inspired merchandise. This was the best, as it resembled the player the closest.

Rachel loved the 80's in general. They were her favorite decade without a doubt. The movies, the music, the crazy fashion and the technology? The only era that she had loved more were the 50's because there was something about drive in movies with a drive in dinner date to match that made her heart melt. It also explained why her favorite movie was _Grease_, no matter how amazing all the other movies she preferred watching on repeat were.

"Now, we're doing all this so that Jesse can see he didn't knock you done and his removal from your life has only made you stronger. Nobody dumps my girl for another girl that's neither as pretty or as talented and gets away with it from only a punch in the face from Sam. I need to have my part in hurting him as well, and since I am no threat to him physically and I am not stooping to his level of a sing-off, because even _I'm _not that gay, I will merely have to rely on fashion to do my bidding for me," He beamed as he hooked his arm through her own and they made their way from the dorm room.

* * *

When Puck saw Rachel enter the music building on his way to his football meeting, he knew there was something to that, and he should remember to ask Mike about it later, because now that Mike knew he wanted to get with her to 'pop Berry's cherry' he was much more eager to discuss the petite brunette.

Knowing what interested Rachel had and acting as if Puck shared them with her would definitely be a step in the right direction. Whenever he was trying to get with a particularly disinterested girl who knew about his reputation and didn't seem eager to become another notch on his belt, he would prove that he had something in common with them and wanted much more than sex-even if he most definitely didn't want anything other than sex from them, because they were boring as hell to talk to and way too demanding to be in an actual relationship with.

He was aware from the few moments he had spent with Rachel that she was not boring and there was no way she would be a demanding or clingy girlfriend, but he still wasn't the type of guy to settle down.

Besides, there were so many other fine pieces of ass around the campus that he wasn't going to spend any longer on getting with Rachel than he necessarily had to. He was a new guy here, and nobody knew about his bad reputation. That was good for him, because it meant he could pretty much get away with it all. And it made everything that much easier when it came to getting girls. Maybe he'd even change things up a little bit with his reputation?

Then again...

As he bumped into a red-haired, scrawny freshman who was obviously checking out Rachel's ass as he walked, he remembered why he had that bad-boy exterior with the bad-ass-rebel-without-a-cause label. He seriously hated people.

And bumping into that kid had just felt so good, he'd probably do it again.

Besides, it wasn't like it had been an accident. He'd known what he was doing and he knew why he was doing it-even if he would never admit he had only done it because he didn't like the way the kid was staring at Rachel as though she were a piece of meat and that bothered him for some reason, because admitting that would be horrible for his rep.


	4. Chapter 4

**The Music In Me  
A Glee AU Series  
Chapter 4  
**

******_A/N: So...it's been a while. But I'm back and better than ever-maybe. I don't know, hopefully. I'll try to be. I hope you guys enjoy the newest chapter and enjoy meeting all of my oh-so enjoyably creative characters who are pretty much exactly how they are in the show because I'm not feeling writing characters in ways they don't really act in the show. This is in an AU and it's OOC, but I'd like it to be somewhat realistic to the show. Tell me if I'm doing a good job, alright? You guys are awesome and please keep reviewing. Also, this chapter is for Nerdy-Gurly2 who kept asking me to write another chapter even when I wasn't inspired. You're awesome and this is for you for encouraging me. _**

* * *

"You are a total nerd," Brittany giggled, reaching out and pushing Sam playfully as they stood outside of the building where the Cheerleading meeting would be taking place. "I'm not even kidding, who says stuff like that?" She rolled her eyes as she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the building, raising her eyebrows at him curiously.

"What? All I said was that Harry was getting pretty old to still be going to Hogwarts. I was surprised they never started calling him, like, Harold Potter or something," He said, running a hand through his blonde locks as he laughed at his lame joke that couldn't have been less funny if he had tried.

"You are a total nerd," Brittany repeated.

"I am not a nerd!" Sam insisted.

"You are a nerd and it's weird. Seriously, it's a little creepy. I don't like nerds," She stuck her tongue out at him, twirling her hair around her fingertips playfully.

"You're a nerd too." Sam said, reaching out and grabbing her belly button ring. "I seriously hate these things, but this one just proves that you're a nerd, too. I bought Rachel one just like this and she never even wore it. I should have suspected it, though, when she insulted the game the entire time I tried to teach her how to play," he rolled his eyes, letting go of the dark grey, almost blue charm and shaking his head.

At the mention of Rachel, their moment sobered up and Brittany remembered that Sam was Rachel's best friend and that Rachel was her roommate. She remembered that Sam was in love with Rachel according to everybody on campus. She remembered that Rachel had strict regulations when it came to her friends dating other friends. And with that reminder, they were forced to get over it and stop their flirt session.

And Brittany really didn't want to take the one thing that Sam liked her about her and turn it around to make it Rachel-related, but she couldn't stand the thought of lying to him, or withholding the truth from somebody so sweet. "Actually, this _is-"_She started but Sam cut her off.

"Hey, listen-I gotta head to my football meeting, okay? I'll catch you later or something, alright? You'll probably be at your dorm when I stop by to bring Rachel dinner-it's kind of our tradition. You want something? I just grab some fast food. I go to about five different places so I'm sure I'll be somewhere where you'll want something from," He offered, reaching behind his head and scratching at his neck awkwardly.

"Um, whatever you get Rachel-actually, whatever you get Kurt should be fine. Thanks," She whispered, biting down on her bottom lip as the moment completely shattered around them, putting them right back to the awkwardness they had shared when their tour had begun, before Sam had started blurting out random Chuck Norris facts and then rambling on about one of the many fandoms he was obsessed with and what he thought was stupid about what he actually appeared to worship, before starting on defending his fandom of choice, causing Brittany to laugh hysterically at his awkwardness.

"The vegan crap ain't for you?" Sam cracked one more joke, turning around and walking away, shooting her one more look over his shoulder as he walked, causing him to walk right into a tree before he shook his head, obviously to clear his head before he started forward, not looking back at her again.

She let out one more giggle before she turned around and entered the building.

"Were you with Sam Evans?" A low-pitched, holier-than-thou voice asked as Brittany felt an arm slide through her own arm. "Because I don't think I've seen him with a girl who wasn't Rapaul since Sandbags left and I've _definitely _never seen him with a blonde before," the girl went on.

"Rapaul?" Brittany asked, tugging her arm back from the other girl's grasp and staring down at her. "Sandbags?" She studied her.

The newcomer was another blonde, with dark green eyes the color of emeralds, narrow and harsh as she stared at Brittany. She was gorgeous, and already wearing her Cheerio's uniform, hair in a sky-high ponytail that had to be too tight for her.

"Rachel Berry-sorry, forgot, you're a newbie," The girl laughed. "She's this total Glee-nerd. Queen of the Gleeks, you know? She's always up Sam's ass and he's got some kind of infatuation with her that makes him immune to every other hot girl in this school. Like Sandbags, even if her chest was completely fake. She was Rachel's old roommat-Santana Lopez. She was on the squad, too," she explained.

"Rachel's my roommate. I know who she is, and she's actually really nice," Brittany said with a bitter edge to her tone.

"Oh, you poor thing-she's trying to convert you to her and Kurt's little cult! Sweetie, nobody normal is in that thing, except for Sammy and that's only because he went to elementary school with her. I'm Quinn Fabray-head Cheerio. I will tell you _all _about who is normal here," She said with a cruel type of sweetness to her voice.

"It's Brittany, bitch," Brittany said, rolling her blue eyes before she sped up her strides and moved into the main section.

* * *

Rachel and Kurt walked into the music building, entering the choir room for their Glee club meeting arm in arm, giggling with one another about something or other, stopping only when Mr. Shuester, the director, cleared his throat from where he was standing by the white board, marker in hand.

"Nice of you two to join us," He said with a teasing smile-everybody knew that Rachel was his favorite female member, because of her powerful voice and the chemistry it appeared as though she had with his prodigy, Finn Hudson-the male lead who had an obvious crush on Rachel and asked her out every year, multiple times each year. It had just become a part of the routine for all the other members of the Glee club.

Finn had originally been here on a football scholarship. He was a quarterback, the same position as Sam. They showed up at the same time and competed for the starting position. In seventh grade, Sam was awarded the spot as the starting quarterback and Finn quit the team. He needed a way to find another scholarship and he needed one fast. So he tried to get one for music. Luckily for him, the music department needed another male with strong leads. And Finn had fit the bill, earning him the scholarship he needed in order to stay at the school without his mother having to scrounge up the money to pay to keep him in the school he wanted so badly to go through.

"Rachel!" Finn said brightly, a smile to match his tone on his face. "I saved you two a seat!" He said, eagerly from his seat in the back row.

Rachel looked at Kurt, who had always had an open crush on Finn-well, open to Sam and Rachel, at least-and the two shared an eye roll as they opted for their usual seats in the center of the front row.

Unfortunately, that put Rachel right next to Jesse St. James, her dick of an ex-boyfriend. Luckily, next to Kurt was Mercedes Jones who was seated besides Tina Cohen-Chang who was sandwiched between Mercedes and Artie Abrams.

Mercedes, Tina, Kurt, Artie and Rachel were the five members of the New Directions who were probably the closest to one another, as Mercedes and Tina were best friends and Tina had been in a relationship with Artie since freshman year, not that it had been that long, being as they were just sophomores now.

Next to Finn, on the side where the empty seats weren't being reserved for Rachel and Kurt, were the newcomers who were obviously freshman. There were, after all, only seven returning members-besides Sam who would be stopping by later to see what he had missed-and most of them were sophomores, Jesse acting as the only senior and upper class man in the club.

And while that should make him be in charge, Rachel and Kurt, who had started the glee club when they were in the sixth grade, were always voted as the co-captians of the club and that meant they ran the auditions.

"Alright, newbies. Which of you is gonna be first?" Rachel smirked.

"Don't worry-we aren't as scary as the rumors may have hinted," Kurt assured with a wicked grin spreading across his face that reminded Rachel of the Chesire Cat from _Alice In Wonderland._

"Here's the list, Rachel," Mr. Shuester said, walking towards the girl and handing the piece of paper with all of the newcomers on it, stars next to those who were already in the club because they were there on a scholarship.

"Alright, now, not all of you have to audition, because some of you are here on a scholarship and that means you already auditioned. I'm still going to call you all up here. If you need to audition, you introduce your piece along with yourself. We do this every year just so everybody can get to know one another. Kurt and I will ask you a few questions, and maybe the others will join in, if need be," Rachel instructed.

"First up, we have Wade Adams," Kurt read from the list. "Sugar Motta,"

A slightly short black boy made his way to the front of the room, followed by a tiny girl with a honey brown colored bob and milk chocolate colored eyes.

"Jacob Puckerman and Marley Rose-wait a second...Puckerman? Are you related to Noah Puckerman?" Rachel whirled around in her seat, turning towards the only other boy sitting back there that she didn't know.

"He's my half-brother," The boy said.

He had a slightly darker complexion than Puck did, but the features were all there as was the hair-minus the hairstyle. The only difference was that Puck had a pair of hazel eyes while Jake's were a dark shade of brown that were surprisingly deep. The girl that followed besides him had long, dark brown hair and eyes a slightly lighter shade with pale skin and such a tiny frame that she seemed fragile, almost breakable.

But Rachel's eyes went immediately back to Noah's brother and she wondered if there was any way she could be expecting to see him walk through the door to the choir room any time soon, even though something told her it was highly unlikely for him to ever enter the music building, yet along sign up for the Glee Club.

"Rachel, you okay?" Kurt whispered into her ear, leaning close to her.

"Oh, yeah. I'm fine," She shook her head. "And Mr. Shuester-my roommate is thinking about coming to audition. Her name's Brittany Pierce," Rachel spoke up, suddenly remembering that she had priorities that were much more important than worrying about Noah Puckerman, especially when she could feel Jesse's eyes staring at her bare legs with hunger and feel the burn of Finn's longing gaze at the back of head head. She had too many guys to deal with. She didn't need to concern herself with another.

* * *

"She's in the Glee club," Mike explained as Puck entered the boys' sports building with him. "She's pretty awesome, too. I mean, if you're into all that singing stuff," He shrugged as they made their way towards the football locker room.

"She can sing? She got a good set of pipes on her?" Puck raised an eyebrow, a knowing smile stretching at the corners of his mouth.

"Damn, dude, you're a perv," Mike shook his head, reaching out and punching him in the shoulder. "She's got a pretty good set of pipes, though. And, yeah, I know what they say about that," Mike laughed at Puck's pervertedness.

"I'm just saying-if I wanna pop Berry's Cherry, I'm gonna have to know what's going on with her and what assets of hers I can use," Puck shrugged as they entered the locker room and made their way towards one of the empty benches to take a seat for their meeting. "And knowing if a girl has good lung capacity is a pretty good thing to know. She got a gag reflex? 'Cause that'd be even better," He smirked.

As he sat down besides Mike, he felt a harsh shove in the back and turned around the find the blonde haired surfer-looking kid sitting behind him with an angry scowl stretched out across his large mouth, usually warm eyes narrowed into harsh slits as he was crossing his arms over his chest. And the thing that shocked Puck was the anger that the blonde was holding was directed right at him, which was something he couldn't figure out.

"Don't talk about Rachel like that. I'm not kidding. You're new, so you don't know the rules. But Mike? You know how it is. Guys that disrespect my girl have to answer to me and you can ask Jesse St. James about what that's like. So, do yourself a favor and back off and don't even think about getting an answer to any of those questions, because if I find out you're even thinking about it, I'll make sure you aren't able to use that part of your body anymore. And you'll be easier to kick the crap out of than Jesse was, because she won't be around to stop me and she won't care about you half as much," Sam said darkly in a tone that told Puck he shouldn't question the threats, because Sam would be more than willing to prove that he meant what he was saying.

"I told you he was an over protective son of a bitch," Mike muttered into Puck's ear, grabbing his arm and forcing him to turn around.

Puck shook his head, trying to figure out what was going on at this school that Sam Evans-a god damn quarterback-was the toughest guy around and the one they were all afraid to mess with. There was something wrong when Puck was supposed to act as though he were afraid of a guy who was half the size of him when it came to muscle mass and was only an inch taller than him, if not the same height. It wasn't normal for Puck to not be the toughest guy on campus.

"He's the team captain-he could get your ass kicked out of here without a second though, and something tells me you like football a little too much for that to happen," Mike hissed in his ear, obviously sensing the puzzlement behind Puck's hazel eyes.

And that did cause Puck to pause for a moment, because he did love football and he wanted to be able to play. He didn't want to be told he couldn't play the sport he loved anymore because he was disrespecting some girl he'd met for five minutes who was also his sister's roommate. Maybe he should back off of Rachel, just for the sake of the sport he loved?

But, then Puck remembered that he never backed down from a challenge, and Rachel was becoming a bigger challenge every day. He wasn't going to give up any time soon.

"Let's see how much longer that lasts," Puck told Mike softly. "After all-none of you losers have seen me play yet, and a good running back is every bit as important as a good quarterback," He shrugged.

* * *

Kurt Hummel knew that something was up with Rachel.

He could tell from the fact that she didn't freak out when that Marley Rose girl-who wasn't even supposed to sing an audition piece as she was on a scholarship-sang a Barbra Streisand song and referred to it as a Billy Joel song, and the fact that she was good.

He knew that there was something wrong with her from that fact that when that Jake Puckerman kid, who was related to Noah Puckerman, went up and started on about himself-he was on a scholarship, partial, but still scholarship-she asked him questions mainly about his brother, which caused him to look at her as if he were weirded out by her, and that caused Finn to turn his longing glances into hardened glares that normally only came from Jesse.

Besides that, she didn't seem annoyed by the glares she was getting from Jesse or the longing looks that she was getting from Finn the way that she normally did when the two boys acted that way. And when Mercedes muttered something sarcastic under her breath-because while the girls were sort-of-friends, Mercedes was still jealous-about Rachel being a diva towards the end of rehearsal when Rachel told Mr. Shuester about some song ideas she had for their competitions, she didn't get that sad little, injured puppy dog look on her face the way that she normally got when Mercedes went into diva mode.

Oh, and then there was the fact that she didn't get all excited when Wade started to introduce himself as Unique and sang a song where he had a voice that was almost as high as Kurt's own, rocking the female power ballad that was normally in the repertoire of Rachel, and occasionally Mercedes. She didn't even seem to notice the fact that Sugar Motta couldn't even carry a tune and had the personality of a brick wall. She didn't notice Tina and Artie flirting all through rehearsal and she wasn't getting annoyed with them for doing so the way she normally got annoyed whenever a member of the club wasn't paying any attention to what was going on. And when the meeting was finally over, she wasn't even aware that everybody was gone and she was still sitting there.

"Rach, you ready to go? The meeting's over," Kurt said, reaching out and tapping her shoulder.

"What?" She jumped, startled by the sudden contact as she turned her head to face him, looking up at him in shock as her eyes widened and her lips parted to create a tiny little O of surprise, as if she'd thought she were actually alone in the room.

"We're done for today. We can head back to our dorms and put on some comfortable clothes and relax, you know? The usual stuff we do before school actually starts for the semester? Besides, you might want to hurry because I know two particular males that you don't want to see and I'm sure they're waiting to see you, because they adore you," Kurt said, a teasing smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

He usually teased her when she got like this-zoning out from the rest of the world as she entered her own little universe. He hated it when she disappeared like that on him, but she did it most of the time and it was something she did was Sam as well, so he didn't take it too personally. Besides, he had been known to zone out when he was hard in thought before as well, so why shouldn't he allow his best friend the same privileges? He wasn't a hypocritical type of friend who only wanted his friends to be there for him. He wanted to offer Rachel the same respect she had always offered him.

She shook her head, clearing her thoughts-he knew that habit of hers very well and he had the same of his own, as did Sam-before she stood up, running a hand through her dark mane of hair. She slipped her arm through his offered arm and he led her from the room, shooting a warning glance at a concerned looking Finn Hudson who was standing by the door, obviously unsure about if he should go and try to talk to Rachel or just walk away. When they exited the music building, Kurt quickened his pace-he knew that Jesse was not only unconcerned about Rachel's condition, but he merely wouldn't care about whether or not she was distraught. If he was going to try and win her back, he was going to do it whenever he felt like it, because Jesse did whatever he wanted whenever he wanted.

* * *

Sam Evans wasn't sure what was going on in his life at the moment.

He had been going after Rachel for as long as he could remember. He wanted to date her-he wanted to be able to hold her hand without it being questioned by those around him. He wanted to put his arms around her without rumors flying about the two of them.

He wanted to be with Rachel in every sense of the word, because he positive that he loved her. He was sure of it, because no other girl had ever attracted him since he had realized that he wanted to be with her and only her. Sure, he'd had other girlfriends, but they had never lasted long and they had never been serious. Besides, he was constantly turning girls down because they had nothing on Rachel. It was only when Rachel tried to set him up with somebody that he went and decided to give it a chance.

Santana Lopez had been the hottest girl that had ever walked the ground of Presidential Academy, but when she had made a move on Sam, he had turned her down and told her that he just wasn't interested before explaining that he didn't want to ruin their friendship, because it meant a lot to him. Of course, he knew as well as she did that the real reason he was turning her down was because he was interested in Rachel. Just like the entire school knew that when he told Quinn he just wasn't interested in her because she wasn't really his type, it was actually because he was interested in Rachel.

So, long story short?

The entire school knew it. Sam Evans was in love with Rachel and he would keep turning down the hot and popular females in an effort to be with her, even if she would never consider him a possibility because she valued his friendship and was constantly referring to him as her big brother.

Still, the male population knew better than to say anything vulgar about her. They didn't disrespect Rachel because they knew how Sam would react. The only problems Sam had ever had with a guy disrespecting Rachel had been back when Jesse St. James had broken her heart by breaking up with her a week after Santana had packed her bags and moved out. And when Finn Hudson kept kissing her whenever he was alone with her, getting a little too carried away.

But, after spending the day with Brittany and seeing the way their conversation flowed effortlessly-once the awkwardness had faded away, he was starting to question that. After all, they had an easy humor among them and clearly they had things in common, if her HALO belly button ring said anything. And, while he normally hated piercings that weren't on the ears in the required location, because he thought it made a girl look trashy, it had a different look on Brittany. The girl was so sweet and innocent-and she dressed like such a pure young girl, having a piercing through her stomach made her seem a little rebellious. It was sort of a turn on for him.

Not that he'd ever say that aloud-he knew how Rachel felt when it came to her friends dating her roommates and he was well aware of how Rachel felt about her roommates going after her boys, as she lovingly dubbed Sam and Kurt.

Of course, the concern mainly went for Sam, because Rachel would never have to worry about a roommate going after Kurt-because he wasn't one of those gay guys that made girls believe that every hot guy in the world was gay.

The thing that was really confusing Sam, though, was the fact that he usually got more jealous than he did protective when it came to Rachel.

But when he heard Puck and Mike talking about Rachel and what she might be like in bed, he couldn't bring himself to feel jealous. Instead, he merely felt as though he needed to step in to protect the girl that was his best friend and whose virtue meant the world to him, because he appreciated her friendship and he respected her as a female. He wanted everybody to respect Rachel the same exact way that he did.

* * *

Brittany was pretty sure that she was going to pay for what she had said to Quinn.

She had figured that much out from the way Sue Sylvester acted as though Quinn was her best friend and her own daughter, proudly bragging about all of her accomplishments through her years on the cheerleading team.

And her belief had been furthered when she saw Quinn sit down next to another blonde haired girl and begin whispering in her ear, looking back at Brittany with a pointed look that had ended up with the other blonde girl-Brittany learned that her name was Kitty something or other-turned around to shoot a glare at her, shaking her head in distaste before the meeting had even started.

But, what did it matter what Quinn had to say?

She was a rude, insulting girl who called Rachel mean names.

That made her a bully and Brittany was not a fan of bullying. She absolutely hated bullying, especially when it came to her friends. So, hearing it from Quinn about a girl as lovely as Rachel, she knew that something had to be done. So, she had stepped in and she had said the words that were running through her head without a second thought.

She sighed as she stood up, her new Cheerio's uniform draped over her arm as she made her way from the locker room.

Unfortunately, Quinn and her friend Kitty were walking right in front of her, arms linked as they giggled and whispered with one another.

"Have you seen that hottie new guy? He's got a mohawk and he is absolutely _delicious," _Quinn was telling Kitty as they made their way out of the Cheerios' locker room and started making their way down the hallways of the girls' sports building.

"Puck? It's such a stupid name, but he's hot enough that he makes it work. And he's on the football team which means he needs to usual initiation-even if _Trouty Mouth _keeps turning me down and making the tradition follow suit for everybody but himself," Kitty huffed.

"Oh, you are _bad. _Don't worry-Trouty Mouth is going to go after you. I promise you. I mean, how long can he keep fighting for the attention of a girl like Man Hands? He's the total package and he has a six pack. With that blonde hair and those tall genes he's got? He's much too hot to act as though he were desperate for attention and some love," Quinn giggled. "And as for Puck? You can have him when I'm finished. He looks like fun to blue ball," Quinn giggled, examining her purity ring that sat on her ring finger lovingly, as it sparkled in the sunlight.

Brittany got a feeling that they were referring to Sam when they used that particular nickname.

"Noah Puckerman?" Brittany said as she pushed her way through them, causing them to break apart and no longer be arm in arm with one another. "He won't be going after either of you. He's my brother, and he's got his eyes on somebody else," She called over her shoulder, shooting a smirk in their direction as she spotted her brother leaving his own building with a very attractive looking Asian boy.

She took in the shocked reactions that the two blonde shared before she started off towards her brother.

"PUCK!" She called out, sprinting over to him and tossing her uniform at the Asian boy, jumping onto her brother's back, giggling as he reached out to pull her into a tight hug.

AS much as she hated her brother, she loved the moments she got with him when he acted like that-like a sweet type of guy who could actually be lovable and sweet. The type of guy that she was sure Sam was like with Rachel.


	5. Chapter 5

**The Music In Me  
A Glee AU Series  
Chapter 5**

**_A/N: I would just like to let it be known that I've changed the original plot line of this series. Instead of Mike being in on the Rachel-love, he's going to, just, not be interested because that would be too weird to write with how I've started it. Instead, it's going to start off with Finn 'in love' with Rachel, the same way he was in season 1, minus the girlfriend. He wants her because in his mind, dating her would be easy and he wouldn't have to worry about her breaking up with him or asking too much of him (that's my personal opinion on what first attracted Rachel to Finn, because Quinn was popular and controlling while Rachel wasn't.) Sam will like Rachel, but is slowly starting to question if he's in love with her or just loves her, because there's a difference. Puck is the one who truly likes Rachel, even if at the moment he just wants her for sex. And Jesse is not interested in her. He's her ex-boyfriend (more to that story later) who broke up with her and crushed her (that too). And, just like Jesse in the show, he likes messing with her and playing mind games because she makes it easy for him to get to her. I just wanted to address that after an anonymous reviewer said that they weren't fond of how I always have guys liking Rachel in my series. In the show, she had Puck trying to make out with her, Finn trying to date her and was dating Jesse, so honestly, if you like the TV show I'm not noticing a large difference from what I'm writing. I really don't like reviews I can't personally respond to because than I have to do something like this to acknowledge that makes it seem like it was a bigger deal to me than it really was. Anyways, please keep reviewing and enjoy my story.  
A/N2: And Lea Michele at the Teen Choice Awards had be crying. Her speech about Cory was just so heartbreaking and it was enough to make me miserable over his death all over again. I'm starting to question if I'll be able to watch Glee when it comes back on. It hurts listening to the music, especially when it's Cory singing. I might not have known Cory, but Glee got me through a rough time in my life and it has helped me through countless other hard times in my life as well, and whenever I'm having a bad day, I knew that a scene with Cory would be enough to make me laugh. He was an inspiration, just as the rest of the cast is and I hate that one of my role models is now gone from my life and I can't wait week to week for the next episode with his newest song or his next funny line that will make me laugh my head off. Lea is one of the strongest people I know just for getting up on that stage tonight. That was just another reason that she is my role model-my number one role model and the person I look up to the most. _**

* * *

"What was up with you today? Was it seeing Jesse again?" Kurt wondered from his perch on Rachel's bed.

He was leaning back on his elbows, legs dangling over the edge as he looked up at her with a concerned look on his face. Rachel stood by the closet, in the process of changing out of her clothes for the day and into something a little more comfortable-they had already stopped by Kurt's room to allow him to do the same.

"Oh, yeah, that must have been it," Rachel shook her head, tugging on her yoga shorts as she stood there in just her sports bra. Her hair was twisted into a low ponytail and she was slipping on a pair of TOMs when she noticed something strange about Kurt's wardrobe. "Are those Sam's shorts?" She asked suspiciously.

"He gave them to me!" Kurt defended himself. "Besides, I'm always offering him full access to my closet and it's only fair that he return the-"he cut himself off as the door to Rachel's room was thrown open and Noah Puckerman himself came running inside, Brittany giggling on his back as an awkward looking Mike Chang hung out by the door, holding a Cheerio's uniform uncomfortably.

And then, as Kurt turned to Rachel with a wide-eyed look and she, in a panic, went to find a shirt to throw on-Mike and Puck turned their attention to the shirtless female on the other side of the room.

"Well, if today isn't my lucky day," Puck smirked.

Rachel rolled her eyes, grabbing a white and pink tank top. She pulled it on over her head and fell face down onto the bed besides Kurt, ignoring his comments. Kurt shot him a disgusted look and Brittany looked appalled at what had just happened before her own eyes.

There was a silence in the room that was only broken when Sam came walking through the door with his hands full of bags from various fast food restaurants, that usual goofy and carefree grin on his face that only faded away when he noticed the tension in the room, his sparkling eyes looking from a frazzled Brittany to an arrogant Puck to a humiliated Rachel to a shocked Kurt and back again repeatedly.

"What'd I miss?" He asked.

"Rachel was giving away some free shows," Puck smirked directly at the blonde, and Kurt got the impression that there was more to that particular story-he would be bugging Sam to give him all the juicy details as soon as they were back in the privacy of their dorm.

"They walked in on my when I was changing," Rachel muttered, rolling over onto her back and using her elbows to prop her into a sitting position. "Oh, hey-you brought me food! You are the _best, _Sammy-absolutely the best!" She said cheerfully as she smiled at him.

Sam didn't take his eyes off of Puck, gaze narrowed into a hardened glare that just increased the already existent tension in the room. Kurt was pretty sure he would have been able to cut the tension with one of those plastic knives that Sam was bound to have about fifty of in those take-out bags. The only question was why Puck was the only one getting the full extent of the glare, because it wasn't merely for the fact that he'd been the one to speak. Sam had to have some other reason to dislike this guy being around Rachel. And Kurt would be getting to the bottom of it.

"My brother and his friend will be going now," Brittany said, standing up and walking towards Mike Chang, taking her uniform and glaring at her brother as she made her way towards her closet to hang it up.

Even she had noticed the tension in the room, but she was the only one doing anything to stop it.

* * *

"Dude, I just don't get it," a tall kid was complaining as he pushed a boy in a wheelchair across the common room of the dormitory a few hours later-Mike and Puck had gone to sit there, rather than lock themselves away in their room once Brittany had kicked them out of her own room. "Why isn't Rachel into me? I mean, before, it was because of Jesse-but the guy cheated on her and broke her heart. Shouldn't she be giving me a chance by now?" He wondered, removing one hand from the handles of the chair and reaching up to run the hand through his thick head of dark brown hair.

Puck's ears perked up at the mention of Rachel's name and Mike leaned back on the couch, his head tilted back as he put his hands over his face. He had just gotten his roommate to shut up about how good Rachel had looked without a shirt on a few moments ago, and this wasn't going to help keep her name out of their conversation any time soon. In fact, it was just going to spark up another conversation about the girl that Mike had never even thought twice about before.

"Finn, you're my roommate and I love you like a brother and all, but seriously? Rachel Berry? Dude, I don't understand girls as it is and you're asking me to decode Rachel's feelings? That girl's more complex than any character she could ever play in a musical and you know it as well as me," The wheel-chair clad kid shook his head.

"It's just stupid-am I that bad looking that I can't even attract the Queen of the Gleeks? Did quitting the football team seriously damage my reputation that much?" the kid-Finn-asked in distress.

"Are you seriously asking me something about popularity?" the other boy asked him.

"Right, sorry," Finn shook his head.

"I could be offended that you knew what I meant right away, but I'll choose to be grateful you're starting to get smarter," the boy in the wheel chair said simply, removing his glasses and cleaning them on his shirt.

"This whole thing sucks. I've been into her since the seventh grade and she hasn't given me the time of day. And every time I kiss her, she goes and tells Sam and he comes and threatens me about how I need to learn that no means no or whatever, as if I were going to rape her," Finn ranted on. "Give me some advice, Artie!" He begged.

"I'm lucky I have Tina, Finn. I seriously don't know what you want me to say. But, Rachel not being interested probably has something to do with Sam. You know as well as I do that she doesn't involve herself with any guy that Sam doesn't like and if that kid has a reason to dislike anybody in this school, it's you. If he gets hurt, you're going to get called to replace him and he'll lose his scholarship and have to head back to wherever the hell they're from," Artie reminded him.

"You really think this all stems back to that stupid contest Sam and I had in sixth grade to see who the starter would be? Sam won-they wouldn't offer me his spot indefinitely and he knows that. As much as I hate to admit it, the kid's got a good arm and he's better than me. Especially when it comes to coming up with plays and figuring out what plays he needs to use during a game," Finn replied. "I think there's something more to it, and I'm going to figure out what it is. After all, I had..."His voice began to fade away as he and Artie passed Mike and Puck and neared the elevators.

"You want to know who those guys were, don't you?" Mike sighed, picking his head up and looking at Puck with a tired expression on his face, dropping his hands back to his sides.

"If you would," Puck smirked, knowing that Mike was going to give him the answer.

"The tall guy was Finn Hudson. He was here on a football scholarship but he quit at the end of sixth grade when they gave Sam the starting position-they were both quarterbacks. To stay, he joined the glee club and got a music scholarship," Mike explained.

Puck nodded, taking in this new information with a determined look on his face-he was going to get Rachel and this data-collecting session was important to his plans.

"Anyways, as soon as he was in the club, he only had eyes for Rachel, but everybody's pretty sure it's just because she's a safe choice for him-he won't have to worry about her picking somebody else, because most guys think she's weird," he shrugged.

This news shocked Puck and he wasn't afraid to make that known. After all-Rachel was hot, and in his experience, a hot body beat out an annoying personality any day. And if a girl looked like Rachel, she couldn't be weird enough to pass up a date with. But, clearly the guys at this new school had other ideas on that matter. It didn't matter-less competition for himself when it came to her.

"And then the kid in the wheel chair was Artie Abrams. He's not on a scholarship-his parents are pretty loaded and they got even more money after the accident that got him in that chair. He joined the club to impress the girl he had a thing for," Mike went on.

"Did it work?" Puck raised an eyebrow.

"They're dating now," Mike shrugged.

"Well, maybe I should take a page out of the cripple's book, then. After all-I'm a big enough stud and a tough enough bad ass that my reputation can withstand joining something as girly as Glee club," Puck smirked.

"You're going to join the glee club so you can impress Rachel Berry?" Puck nodded. "Dude, Kitty has slept with the entire football team and you're next on her list. And Quinn Fabray dubbed you as the newest god on campus. You don't _need _Rachel. You've got options," Mike protested, shaking his head in disbelief.

"But that's the thing-I have options, sure. And they're all going to throw themselves at my feet because they know girls like Quinn and Kitty want me-those are the two blondes we saw Brittany with, right?" He stopped there, looking at Mike for a moment. When he nodded, he went on. "I want a little bit of a challenge. And Rachel Berry? She's not going to be very easy to win over," He determined, crossing his arms and leaning against the couch.

His mind was made up, and there was nothing that Mike was going to say to change his mind.

He wanted Rachel, and that was where his sights were set. If anybody had a problem with that, well, they could come and take it up with him. Besides-it wasn't like he wanted a relationship with Rachel.

He wanted to have sex with the girl and then move onto a girl that would be all too willing for a chance with him. He was only starting with Rachel because he knew it would do wonders for his reputation.

At least, that's what he was going to keep telling everybody.

And maybe, just maybe, if he said it enough times aloud and enough times in his head, he would start to believe it himself. And maybe, if he started to believe that lie, it would eventually become the truth and whatever feelings he was starting to develop towards Rachel would just go away and be forgotten about forever.

* * *

"You called Quinn Fabray a bitch because she called me Rapaul?" Rachel raised her eyebrows, giggling as she munched on her bean-burrito that Sam had brought for her. "And then told her and Kitty-what's her last name?" She asked, turning towards Sam who was sitting on the bed besides her, stuffing his face with burgers and snack wraps from McDonald's as if they weren't fattening and the opposite of healthy.

Brittany and Kurt were sitting on her bed, across the room from there. Sam was still in his clothes for the day while Brittany had changed into sweats a few moments after kicking her brother from the room.

Her bright yellow shorts were the first thing Sam had noticed when she'd entered the room again and he had hated the way he hadn't been able to tear his eyes from her long, bare, muscular legs that were only covered up to the ankle with her yellow and green socks. Her arms were bare as was her stomach due to her cut-out ARMY tank top and her hair was in a funky type of side braid, held together by a black, super-thick ponytail holder.

"I don't think she has one. I think she thinks that going by just her first name makes her hotter, like Madonna or something. She's wrong, because she's scary," Sam said through a mouthful of fries.

"Chew, swallow, speak," Kurt scolded him. "And her last name is Wilde-total stripper name," He muttered.

"You don't like my see-food diet?" Sam asked, opening his mouth wide and leaning towards Kurt who was sitting cross legged on Brittany's bed, the blonde sitting with her legs folded beneath her besides him.

"You're disgusting!" Brittany shrieked, covering her eyes to block the sight of the half-chewed food.

"Anyways, you did all that because they were calling me names?" Rachel asked, eyeing Brittany with interest.

"You're my roommate and you were nice to me before you found out I was a cheerleader. And I haven't heard you say a bad thing about anybody since I got here," Brittany shrugged as if it were obvious.

"Well, Barbie is a bit of a vindictive harpie," Rachel said thoughtfully.

Brittany frowned at her in confusion.

"Barbie is our code name for Quinn, because she pretty much asked me if I wanted to be her Ken," Sam explained, pausing from stuffing his face to take a large gulp of his milkshake.

"She didn't ask you to be her Ken," Kurt shook his head. "She just asked you if you wanted to go out because you two were obviously meant to be together due to your blonde hair and tanned skin hat clearly made you genetically compatible and capable of producing some flawless, symmetrically perfect offsprings," He said.

"She didn't ask that either!" Rachel insisted. "She just said that it only made sense that they went out because they were clearly meant to be a package deal," She told Brittany.

"So, in other words-she was Barbie and I was Ken and we shouldn't be sold separately," Sam shrugged, taking another large bite of what was probably his third or fourth burger.

"And Kitty is a Jesus-Loving-Devil who pretty much hates me because I'm Jewish. But, seriously, she's like a living Pretty Little Liar," Rachel rolled her eyes.

"Why do cheerleaders suck?" Brittany frowned.

"Cheerleaders do not suck. Kitty and Quinn suck because they can't deal with rejection and they know that Sam only rejected them because of Rachel-"Kurt cut himself off at Sam's warning look and Rachel's confusion. "Meaning, he hated that they bullied his best friend and refused to date anybody who treated one of his close friends that way, you know?" He said quickly, using his usual cover up for his Sam's Crush-slip ups in front of Rachel.

"You rejected them?" Brittany asked.

"We happen to be three of the rarest types of people you will find on this campus. We happen to be virgins, thank you very much, and we enjoy our lovely little virginity protection program. As far as we know, we're three of the only members, but whether that's because people lie about doing it or just don't let it known as well as we do, we aren't sure," Sam said proudly, reaching out to wrap Rachel in a one armed hug.

"Some of us are even lip-virgins," Kurt mumbled, crossing his arms over his chest as he pouted.

"Hey!" Sam said in outrage.

"_You _don't count, Sam. _You _kissed me because you felt bad for me when Finn Hudson rudely denied my affections by saying that he was straight and he wasn't going to become gay anytime soon and made sure that it was announced very publicly in front of the entire school in the cafeteria last year at lunch." Kurt insisted.

"I never got a kiss from Sammy," Rachel pouted.

"You want one?" Sam asked, turning towards her and puckering her lips.

Rachel squealed as she pushed him away, kicking at him to keep him at a safe distance. Her freak-out resulted in laughter from Kurt and Brittany, until Rachel fell backwards off of the bed in an awkward type of summersault.

"I love being friends with you losers," Brittany giggled.

* * *

"Okay, since you clearly aren't giving up on winning Rachel over, I'm going to help you," Mike said.

"You are?" Puck asked in amazement.

They had just entered their dorm room and were getting ready for bed, the rest of the dorm quiet as most people had retired to their own rooms long ago, most ready for bed as the first day of classes was the following day.

"The first thing you need to know-and it's the most important thing a person could ever need to know about Rachel is that she loves being recognized for her talent. She's like fucking Tinkerbelle or something. She needs applause to live," he rolled his eyes.

"So if I pay attention to her and praise her, she's going to like me?" Puck asked. "She's like a dog or something."

"Dude, it's way more complicated. She likes musicians. That's why she won't go after Finn and that's why the only guy she's ever dated at this school was Jesse St. James." Mike shook his head.

"Who the hell is this Jesse kid I keep hearing about?" Puck snapped.

"He's a senior."

"Rachel dated an older guy?" Puck asked, eyes growing wide as he learned just another thing about Rachel that made her even hotter than he had originally thought she was.

"That's irrelevant. He's going to some top of the line performing arts school or whatever next year-or, at least, he's applying to get into one. He already got an early acceptance letter to UCLA. But, anyways, he's all about the music. He's what the girls in the music department call a triple threat-he can act, sing and dance. And he worshipped the ground that Rachel walked on, because he likes girls who are a challenge, and Rachel was the only person who could ever out-do him in a performance. And not in a sexual way," Mike said, cutting off whatever perverted joke Puck might have made before he could even come up with one.

"They sound fucking perfect for one another. What happened?" Puck grumbled.

"He cheated on her with Santana Lopez, her old roommate and her old best friend."

"She made a girl switch rooms because she stole her boyfriend?" Puck asked, eyebrows raising in shock.

Could it be possible that Rachel Berry might be a bit of a bad ass?

"What? No," Mike rolled his eyes. "Santana told Rachel she was leaving for some new school she got into or something like that. She wanted Rachel to go but something happened that got them into a huge fight. She told Rachel about how she slept with Jesse as she took the last of her stuff from their room. Rachel was crushed after Santana left, and not just because she slept with Rachel's boyfriend. Rachel went and freaked out on Jesse and he didn't even try to deny it. Then-get this-_he _broke up with _her," _Mike said.

"He cheated and broke up with Rachel?"

"He said that if Rachel was expecting him to change for her, she was crazy because he wasn't the type of guy to settle down and she was lucky he was dating her in the first place. Sam got a few good punches in before Rachel made Kurt drag him off," Mike nodded.

"Kurt _Hummel _broke up a fight?"

"Kurt's pretty strong. He was on the football team for a little while. He was a kicker, but still-he worked out with us at practice and he was lifting some pretty heavy shit for a tiny guy," Mike shrugged.

Puck shook his head, trying to make sense of all of the new information that he was being told. And he was having a hard time believing that any of it was true-especially the part about Kurt Hummel not only playing football, but being surprisingly strong. That much just didn't make any sense at all.

* * *

"You guys sleeping over?" Rachel asked, tossing the last of their garbage into her and Brittany's tiny trash can with an eye roll-it was already full and they'd only been in the room for one full day.

"Is that allowed?" Brittany asked, biting down on her bottom lip.

"We have sleepovers all the time. They used to be in our room, because we had a pull out bed and Santana insisted on having her own bed, but they've always been easier to have at Rachel's, because, well, it's just always been easier that way because it's what we were always used to back at Lima-she had the biggest house and the most space for us to all camp out," Sam explained with a shrug.

"Do you care if they stay?" Rachel frowned.

"No-not at all. I just don't want to get into any trouble." Brittany insisted.

"It's fine-don't worry. We do this all the time. How do you want the arrangements? Newbies always get to pick," Kurt said, flashing her a re-assuring grin.

"I just refuse to room with Kurt-I'll kiss the guy, I'll room with him and I'll change in front of him, but I will _not _sleep with him and it's _not _because he's gay. He's one violent moth-"

"Samuel!" Rachel shrieked. "Watch your language," She insisted.

"I'll sleep with Kurt, if that's okay with him. I throw a pretty mean punch in my sleep-or so I've been told," Brittany said deviously.

"Oh, I _really _like this girl," Kurt squealed in excitement.

"I think you've been replaced," Sam whispered into Rachel's ear as she sat back down on her own bed. "Kurt seems to have found a new girl to try and corrupt," He teased her.

"I heard that!" Kurt sing-songed. "And nobody can replace my diva, even my new fashion-forward best friend," He said and the sound a raspberry could be heard from across the now dark bedroom.

"Okay, seriously? We have classes in the morning and Glee club officially starts tomorrow. Therefore, I need my voice to be perfect and flawless. And a lack of sleep because I stayed up too late and woke up too early? That would be like drinking nothing but dairy and eating nothing but dairy for a week before a big audition," Rachel said, pushing Sam off of the bed as she pulled the covers down and curled up into a ball.

"I forget-is that bad or good?" Sam wondered playfully as he crawled into bed besides her, pulling the blankets over the both of them.

"I hate you and you are a lousy friend for not paying us any attention when we are preparing for an audition. I'm not even kidding, you are a horrible person and you will be replaced as soon as we find another attractive, nerdy straight male who doesn't mind spending time with a drama-queen diva and a flamboyant teen gay," Kurt grumbled from where he was in bed with Brittany, his back to the blonde and his face to the wall.

"Can you all just shut up so we can sleep?" Brittany insisted.

"Seriously, we're going to have to kick you out if you don't stop talking," Rachel said seriously.

"You wouldn't dare," Sam protested.

"You wouldn't even try," Kurt shook his head.

"Oh, you sure about that? You two don't know Brittany all that way just yet," Rachel smirked from where she was locked tightly in Sam's arms, face pressed against his chest.

"You wanna try me?" Brittany challenged.

And there was nothing but complete and utter silence after that.

* * *

"So, if I prove that I've got talent when it comes to music and I praise her for being the most talented person I've ever met, I'm doing something right?" Puck asked across the dark bedroom he was saying with Mike.

"Yes," Mike groaned.

"Are you sure that's all I need to do? Because that seems way too easy and Rachel strikes me as the type of girl who would take a lot more to win over. Having talent and realizing that she has talent doesn't seem like it would be enough to impress her," Puck worried, running a hand through his mohawk in frustration.

"I haven't actually tried to win her over before, you know. I'm just giving you advice based on the one guy who actually stood a change with her, and that's how Jesse was. Besides, you're Jewish and every time she's turned a guy down who had a love of music and realized that she had any form of talent, it was because they would never fully understand what it meant to be a Jew, the way that she does," Mike explained in an obviously annoyed tone.

"She's Jewish?"

"You couldn't tell by looking at her?"

"I had my suspicions, but now that I'm sure? She just got that much hotter," Puck grinned.

"Awesome, now shut up and go to sleep or I will smother you with your pillow and you'll never get a chance with her," Mike threatened.


	6. Chapter 6

**The Music In Me  
Glee Au Fan Fiction  
Chapter 6**

Rachel woke up early the next morning, as she usually did, and was already dressed, in the process of doing her hair and make-up, when her friends woke up. She was sitting at her desk, dressed in a pair of dark wash denim cuffed shorts with a pink, sequenced tank top. Her dog tag styled Star of David necklace dangled from her neck and a two-tone pink thick-bangle moved along her risk with bow-tie earrings to match the bow-tie belly ring. On her feet were a pink of pink wedges with a tribal print on the heel.

She had her Victoria's Secret pink backpack already packed at the foot of her bed with her Juicy pink purse and matching wallet besides it. Her pink sunglasses were lying on top of her bag and she was almost ready to go.

If only her friends were ready to join her for breakfast.

Kurt had woken up around the same time as Rachel and disappeared to his own room to get ready. Brittany had left a few moments ago to go take a shower and should be returning shortly. The only real problem, was Sam.

The door swung open and Kurt came walking in, dressed in a pair of straight leg jeans with a cuffed-sleeve hunter green button down, his dad's old dog tags tucked safely inside with his best friend's bracelet-a watch on one wrist and a bracelet on another. His sunglasses were pushed up in his carefully messed up hair while his messenger bag was swung over his arm, brown leather wallet in hand with his brown covered iPhone in the other hand.

"Is the lazy slug still asleep? He's going to miss breakfast, and we all know that's his favorite meal of the day," Kurt rolled his eyes, dropping down onto Brittany's already made bed.

"Breakfast?" a mess of blonde hair sprung upright on Rachel's bed, jaw dropping at the word. "How long do I have?" He asked, kicking at the blankets until his long legs were free.

"Thirty minutes," Kurt glanced at his watch.

"I'll do it!" He shouted, falling from Rachel's bed and jumping to his feet, racing from the room just as Brittany entered, blonde hair hanging in damp waves down her back.

"I love that skirt," Kurt observed, eyes locked on Brittany's short, Harajuku patterned skirt that she'd paired with a red, cropped, fitted vest.

She had red, stacked wedges on her feet and she nodded her thanks to Kurt as she made her way towards her dresser where her jewelry box was located.

She pulled out a red heart belly ring, putting it through the hole before resuming her search.

"Somebody understands what happens when you oversleep," Rachel giggled, turning around, finally finished getting ready.

"Rachel, it's only oversleeping to you, because you take that long to get ready. Everybody else can get ready in whatever amount of time they have," Kurt rolled his eyes.

"Actually, it's a girl thing. We'll use whatever time we have to get ready, if we need it or not," Brittany explained. "If you give me half an hour, I'll be ready in half an hour. Give me two weeks? I'll take the entire two weeks," Brittany shrugged, turning around as she hooked her gold and red heart-shaped earrings into her ears. Her arms were covered in a mess of gold and red bracelets, all with something different about them, while a red heart-shaped necklace hung from her neck.

"Are you wearing a Wonder Woman arm cuff?" Kurt's eyebrows went up at the sight of the object resting on her upper arm.

"I swear, it's like she was made in a factory. She's perfect for Sam," Rachel whistled.

"Oh, shut up," Brittany stuck her tongue out, snapping a new case onto her iPhone. "Sam doesn't need some factory made girl. He has plenty throwing themselves at him already." She replied with a shrug, grabbing her currently empty red purse and tossing it besides her full backpack.

Silence filled the room at her statement as the two brunettes took in the hidden meaning of her words.

She wasn't saying that Sam didn't need another option when he already had so many others. She was saying that Sam wasn't even going to consider her, when he had so many other girls who were more than willing to be his significant other. Especially when he was already rejecting all of those other girls, because his focus was on somebody else.

She grabbed a Superman wallet and stuffed it into the main pouch.

"The difference between those other girls and you, is that you happen to be perfect for him," Rachel rolled her eyes, trying to lighten the mood again. "And we actually like you," She replied carelessly.

Brittany rolled her eyes again, thinking of a way to change the topic as she tried to hide her comic book key chain from the group, sliding it into her bag as nonchalantly as possible.

Rachel shrugged, standing up and grabbing her bags.

"Are you ready?" She asked, the backpack swung over her shoulders with the purse on the crook of her arm, sliding the sunglasses to hold her hair back.

"Yeah," She nodded, shaking out her blonde hair, that was the type of hair that could look good when left to its own devices, being told to air dry. Unlike Rachel's own silky, dark locks that needed constant maintenance. "Let's do this," She nodded.

* * *

"I can't believe you're going to join the Glee club," Mike shook his head as he and Puck entered their first period class-english. "That's so weird. We don't _do _things like that," he shook his head again before running a hand through his dark hair.

"Hey, it's helping me get closer to Rachel. You said it would, remember?" He shrugged, glancing around the room for a seat, smirking at the sight of Rachel, sitting alone in the back row, right in the back corner, near a window.

He had suspected she would be a front-row kind of girl, but clearly he had been wrong. Before telling Mike what was going on, he made his way over to Rachel and took a seat besides her, dropping his backpack on the floor in the aisle between them, nodding an acknowledgement towards the small girl when she raised her head to see who had sat down besides her.

"Is this seat taken?" He asked, raising his eyebrows at her, eager for a conversation without his sister's interruption.

"Oh, no. Samuel has history this period, with Brittany, and Kurt is in geometry for this hour. I'm the only one who starts off Mondays with english out of our little group. Although, typically Finn Hudson tries to take a seat besides me when he catches me without Samuel or Kurt, so, thank you for that. You've earned yourself a new enemy-he's the one glaring at you right now," Rachel explained, turning back to the notebook she had been writing in.

Class hadn't even started yet, and she was writing things. Puck was pretty sure he was already going to have his work cut out for him, even without this annoying Finn kid-it was good to know she didn't seem to have any sort of an interest in him, however.

That made things easier, because it meant he didn't have any competition for her heart.

He turned towards Mike, talking about something or other with his roommate, while watching Rachel from the corner of his eye, trying to figure out what type of music she liked-he was going to have to audition, afterwards, and that meant he was going to need to sing something. He might as well use his audition as a way to impress her just a little bit more.

But, she made it hard to concentrate, with the way her dark mane of hair fell around her face, shielding it from the full viewing pleasure of her audience. Or, with the way she stuck out her tongue, just a tiny bit, whenever she was deep in thought. Or when she would raise her pencil to her lips, tapping the eraser against the equally as pink skin, before shaking her head and erasing whatever it was she had just written down.

She wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary for a female, especially a teenage one, but she made it look hotter than she should, and that was the part that bothered him.

After all, Kitty and Quinn had just come prancing into their room, and they were easily the hottest girls on campus, or, they were supposed to be at least. There was something about blondes that turned Puck off, and he wasn't exactly sure what it was, but he was rarely attracted to blonde haired girls for anything more than a one-night-stand, and that was only if he couldn't get anybody with a darker hair color.

Brittany liked to joke that his anti-blonde fetish was because she had set the bar too high when it came to blondes, but Puck thought that her idea was gross and just ignored her whenever she said it.

Of course, the two leggy blondes just had to make their way over towards Puck, plopping down into the seats in front of him and Rachel, smirking right at him while seeming to ignore Rachel's very presence.

"Hey-Puck, right? I'm Quinn Fabray," the blonder of the two said, pushing back a strand of curly, golden blonde hair that was hanging loose around her face, falling to her shoulders while framing her face just enough.

She was dressed in a short, blue and white print dress with a tight fitting bodice and a flowing skirt that ended just under her butt. If it were longer, it would be something that was practical and flirty. Instead, with her white wedges, she just looked like she was trying too hard to get that whole 'sexy-religious' girl thing down to a perfect T.

She had a simple blue purse slung over her shoulder and was in the process of wrapping the straps of her galaxy print backpack around her chair. On her desk was an upside down iPhone, to show off her blue case, covered in logos.

Hanging from her neck was a slender gold chain with a simple golden cross. Matching gold earrings hung from her ears and he wanted to laugh when he saw the sparkling ring on her finger, with the words TRUE LOVE WAITS engraved across the silver band.

He settled for rolling his eyes.

"Yeah, that's me," He shrugged.

"I'm Kitty," the dirty blonde said, turning around to face him.

She was texting on a sequenced phone case in various shades of pink, with her blonde curls pushed over one shoulder. Where Quinn was all about looking as nice as possible, it was clear that her best friend didn't care what she wore to school, dressing more like the other girls Puck had seen around campus.

In a pair of short, cut-off, distressed shorts with a black fitted tank top that read CHEERLEADER across her chest in hot pink font, she had the sex appeal that Puck was sure she wanted to get across, while looking like a normal teenage girl. She even wore wedged Converse to complete her casual appearance. She had a pink, obviously designer, bag on her desk with her multicolored back pack on the floor, carelessly tossed aside.

The only thing that showed a real effort for her to have gotten ready that morning was her armful of pink bangles that jingled with every move that she made, and the dangling pink earrings that seemed like they'd weight a hundred pounds.

"You know, just because you're the new kid, it doesn't mean you have to sit next to Rupaul," Quinn said, shooting Rachel a look of disdain. "You can always tell her to move. You're on the football team. You're popular and Man-hands over there is nothing more than a lowly little Glee Club loser," she rolled her eyes.

"Are you talking about Rachel? You know, it's kind of offense to call her Rupaul just because she's Jewish. It's sort of prejudice, you know? I mean, I'm Jewish," Puck said, noticing that Rachel's ears had perked up at the mention of her nickname, before her shoulders had slumped in defeat. "And Man-hands? She's got cute hands," He shrugged.

"What?" Quinn's jaw dropped.

"What?" Kitty repeated, turning towards him in shock.

"Excuse me?" Rachel asked, raising her eyebrows as she turned her attention onto the people around her.

Puck reached out and took her hands in his own, staring down at them thoughtfully.

"You've got really cute hands, did you know that?" He asked her with a goofy grin on his face, winking before he released his grip on her, allowing her to bring her hands back to herself, crossing her arms over her chest tightly.

"Are you seriously defending Yentil?" Quinn made a face.

"And there you go again, insulting my religion. You know, I think it's funny that you've got that purity ring on your finger when all I've heard about you was that you were a slut. Clearly daddy doesn't know what his daughter's up to in her spare time, does he?" Puck challenged her.

"Noah, you don't have to-"

"Noah? Who the hell is Noah?" Kitty asked, glaring at Rachel, as if the entire scene happening were her fault.

"That's my first name. The name that _she _can call me by, because _she's _my friend, and you two are just Blonde and Blonder, and I'm not a fan of blondes, thank you very much," Puck said, turning to face Rachel, his attention off of the two cheerleaders who were gaping in shock at what had just happened.

From the smile that Rachel was giving him, it was worth it, though, and he would gladly take on a pack of rude, bullying cheerleaders any day of his life, if it meant he got to earn a smile like that from Rachel.

* * *

"Who's that?" Brittany asked Sam.

They were the first two to their history class and Brittany was bored.

So, as soon as another person entered the room, she had started asking Sam for as many details as he could give her about the student before the next one would arrive.

"Artie Abrams. The girl wheeling his chair is Tona Cohen-Chang, his girlfriend. They're both in the Glee club," Sam nodded.

The boy mentioned had an a-dork-able type of look to him, in a completely different way than Sam's own. With his carefully styled, spiky brown hair and the square-frame glasses covering his blue eyes, the wheel-chaired boy looked like he belonged in the AV-club, especially with his sweater vests and biker-gloves that gave him a slight edge.

The girl was rather pretty, with pale skin and brown eyes, black hair falling in a wavy matter, pinned to only drape one shoulder. She had a punk-gothic type of edge to her clothing choices, with a 90's twist over the entire thing.

Brittany turned back towards Sam, raising an eyebrow as she signaled for him to continue.

"Artie's one of the few kids in the Glee club that isn't on a scholarship of some sort. Tina is on a partial one. She scares me, and I really don't know much about either of them, except for the fact that Artie is Finn Hudson's roommate-Finn's in the Glee club and he used to play football. He quit because I beat him out of a starting position," Sam went on.

"You're afraid of a girl?" Brittany asked, raising her pale eyebrows up at him.

He lowered his head sheepishly, not giving an answer. She burst out into a fit of giggles which quickly burst into full blown hysterics, having her leaning across her desk and slightly against him. She was laughing so hard for so long, she missed the arrival of the last student to enter the classroom.

The only reason either of them were made aware of the arrival was because the boy came and took a seat besides Sam, calling out a greeting to him before raising his eyebrows in curiosity, trying to figure out not only who the attractive female was besides him, but what was going on between the pair.

"Who's this?" Brittany asked, straightening up into an upright position, eyes locked on the newcomer.

He had boy-band ready, honey brown hair that fell into his carmel colored eyes with a slightly long face and an expression that looked like a cross between angry and sad, would it not have been for his smile which was taking over his entire face. He was obviously tall, as tall as Sam at least, and lanky, with long limbs.

"Ryder Lynn-he's a freshman. He's really good at English, though, so he takes it at a sophomore level. I'm jealous, because he's dyslexic, like me, but he's at least good at _one _subject, whereas I suck at everything," Sam pouted.

"Thank you for announcing my little problem to the entire world. I only skipped a grade for English because my dad sent me here because they have some of the best teachers to work with dyslexic kids. I could barely even read when I got here. The teacher worked with me and I just kind of surpassed everything. Sammy and I have always had English together, since I was in the seventh grade," Ryder shrugged his shoulders.

"Lucky bastard," Sam shook his head, reaching out to give Ryder a shrug. "That's what happens when he has it worse than me. I don't get as much time with my tutors," Sam pouted.

"You don't want dyslexia as bad as I have it, Sam," Ryder insisted. "And can we stop talking about that and introduce me to the incredibly adorable blonde in the seat besides you?" he asked, eyes locking on Brittany.

"I'm Brittany Pierce. Rachel's my roommate-that's why I'm stuck hanging out with this loser," Brittany said, slapping Sam on the back of the head playfully before stretching her arm forward to shake Ryder's.

"If you ever get bored of hanging around with Trouty Mouth, feel free to give me a call," Ryder winked at her and she giggled as she pulled her hand back.

Sam sat there, watching the scene unfold with his arms crossed tightly over his chest and a scowl sketched across his face.

He knew that it shouldn't bother him that Brittany and Ryder were flirting with one another with their playful banter. He shouldn't be bothered by how they were acting. He didn't even know why he would care about it.

But, he was bothered and he did care.

He didn't like it, and it wasn't because he was snapping into that overprotective mode that he went into with Kurt and Rachel all of the time. Instead, it was because of something different. It was even worse than the feelings he had gotten the previous year whenever he'd seen Rachel and Jesse together.

These feelings were something even worse than the jealousy that he was overcome with whenever Rachel was around another guy who wasn't Kurt, but it didn't make sense for him to be jealous of any guy that was talking to Brittany and getting her attention, making her giggle in that cute way with that adorable smile on her face.

But, if he liked Rachel, why did he feel jealous when it came to Brittany?

He shook his head, trying to clear these thoughts from his head. It just wasn't doing him any good to discuss to himself internally his feelings on girls. He needed to wait until he had somebody who understood emotions, the female mind and the male mind. Than, he would be okay.

He had to wait until he could talk to Kurt about what was going on, because that was the way he handled any and all problems in his life that involved a female.

After all, just because he was attractive, it didn't mean that he knew what was going on inside the mind of the species he was so attracted to, and it didn't mean he understood what was going on in his own head half of the time.

* * *

Kurt sat all alone in his geometry class, while Mercedes Jones sat besides him, filling his ear with pointless drama. And as much as Kurt loved gossip, he wasn't a fan of Mercedes Jones. She seemed to have it in her head, along with the fact that her brightly colored clothes were actually in style, that she should be Kurt's best friend and Rachel should be forgotten about.

"And that new kid? Mike Chang's roommate? Apparently he's been asking all around about Rachel! I mean, that boy is one _fine _specimen and he's asking about _Rachel? _There must be something wrong with him. But, apparently he's taken an interested in her. His brother's that one that auditioned for the Glee club yesterday-but you knew that, right? Rachel asked him if they were related or whatever? But, anyways he's got a-"

Kurt tuned in at the mention of Rachel's name, but shook his head and turned right back out when she started to ramble on and on. He didn't have the energy to follow one of her tangents. She was more annoying than when Kaley Cuoco was on _8 Simple Rules, _playing that annoying girl Bridgette who never shut up when she started one of her stories. She was _almost _as annoying as her red haired little sister who never managed to crack a smile for three seasons, despite the wonderful life she was living or the doting boys she managed to attract whenever she went on a date.

He rolled his eyes towards the ceiling, giving a silent prayer of thanks as the bell rang, signaling that start of class. As soon as the bell rang, the teacher was starting class-sometimes, a strict teacher worked wonders.

It got Mercedes to shut up, anyways.

Still, Kurt now had these newfound knowledge to deal with in regards to his best friend.

Maybe Rachel wasn't supposed to be with Sam Evans-that was Brittany's place-and maybe Noah Puckerman was one very sexy and attractive specimen, but that didn't mean that Rachel should settle for him based on looks. But, knowing Rachel, she would fall for him as long as he offered her the right attention.

Finn offered her plenty of attention, but Kurt had had a crush on him, already making him off-limits. Besides, he was obviously interested in her because she was his back-up, a safety net in case he couldn't do any better. And the harder she tried to reject him, the harder he worked to try and get with her. She was a challenge to him, and not in the same way that Kurt was sure she was a challenge for Puck, who thought of her as a challenge for not immediately throwing herself at his feet because of his appearance. Finn thought of her as a challenge because she should want to be with him because of their social statuses. But she didn't.

Honestly, if Kurt was being honest, he would rather Rachel be with Puck over any other guy in school, because they were all jerks and players. None of them deserved her. But, he was only saying that because he didn't know if Puck deserved her or not. Puck was going to have to make it known whether or not he was worth his best friend's affection and he was going to have to work to win her over. And Rachel was going to need to get to know him.

If Puck just came out of nowhere and wooed her though, doing everything it took to make Rachel's heart melt, it was a lost cause and she would fall too fast, only to be disappointed by her high expectations not having been reached.

And Kurt didn't want to have to deal with another heartbreak that Rachel was being forced to go through.

* * *

Rachel couldn't stop sneaking little looks at Puck during her dirt period class. It was just too hard for her to believe that a guy like that would go and defend somebody like her to girls like Quinn and Kitty.

Sure, Sam was an attractive teenage male with a high social status due to his football position and he definitely was always defending Rachel when she needed it, especially from the girls like Quinn and Kitty. But that was a completely different story. After all, she and Sam had been best friends since they were little.

She didn't even know Noah Puckerman. She didn't know the first thing about him. So why was he defending her?

Was it because she was roommates with his sister? Because as close as he seemed with his sister, he didn't seem like he was very protective of her. He didn't act as half as over protective and controlling as Sam did, and he was actually related to Brittany by blood. Besides, it wasn't like he knew how close Brittany and Rachel had become. And if he did, what reason did he have to defending her?

This entire thing was extremely confusing and she didn't know what she was supposed to make of it. At all.

"Hey-Rachel, do you think you could help me out with something?" Puck asked after the bell had rung to dismiss them. She turned head head, studying him slightly, before sighing.

"What's up?" She asked, putting her books back into her backpack.

"I'm thinking about trying out for the Glee Club. I like music and I need an outlet here that isn't going to involve tossing kids into trash cans, you know?" He asked, reaching out and taking her backpack from her. "Let me carry this for you. I'll walk you to your next class," He offered with a smile.

"I have a free period. I'm heading to the music building, to work on something for Glee, actually. We have to figure out a set list. Um, if you want, I could help you with an audition piece-unless you have a class," She said, eyes growing wide. "My next class isn't until ten, though, so you could stop in wherever," She added, following him from the room.

"I don't have class until then, either. Mind if I hang around and bug you?" He asked, raising an eyebrow playfully.

"Um, no-that's fine. We could use a few more male voices in the club, actually. And I'm always looking for ways to help better the club..."She trailed off, smiling to herself at what a relief it would be to have somebody else there to help her deal with Jesse's presence-his first class wasn't until after lunch and she knew that he always hung around the club until then.

Their classes were set up on almost a college-like schedule and Jesse always had a light load of classes, taking exactly what he would need to graduate with the music and drama electives that would be needed for a future career in musical theater. When he wasn't in class, he was in the music building, hanging out in the Glee choir room. That had been wonderful back when they'd been dating, but since the break-up, he'd taken to driving Rachel insane whenever he caught her alone in the room.

Besides, a guy like Puck? That would do wonders for her when it came to Jesse, who was easily made jealous and-despite the confident air he tried to show off-very self conscious, always comparing himself to the guy next to him. And he had nothing on Noah Puckerman, who was about twice his height and three times his body mass when it came to muscle.

"So, you and my sister are pretty close," Puck said as they walked across the bright campus from the Literature building.

"Yeah-she's really nice. We have a lot in common. I managed to convince her to join the Glee club. Her audition is today. If you'd like, I could arrange for your audition to be around the same time, so that you can immediately get started with the work," She offered, a bright tone to her voice.

"Sure-hey, I actually had another question for you, that was a little more serious." He said, lowering his voice.

"What's that?" She bit her bottom lip, suddenly worried. She wasn't sure why, but she was worried.

"Well, this might seem kind of weird, considering what Brittany has told you about me, but I'm pretty into my religion. I know there's a church for the Catholics and Christians and what-not other religions but...is there a synagogue here? I like going to Temple," He admitted.

"You do ?" Rachel asked, eyes growing wide. "Oh, that is absolutely wonderful! I'll take you with me when I go! There isn't one on campus, but there is one close by. Samuel was going to drive me this year because I haven't gotten my license yet, but if you have yours, that would be absolutely wonderful. Then we wouldn't have to bother him!" She asked cheerfully.

"Hpw'd you get there before Sam got his?" He asked.

"Oh, my ex-boyfriend could drive. He'd take me every week. Before that, I used to just call a taxi," Rachel said happily. "Oh, and there is a _wonderful _store just a little while further that has some amazing kosher options for food, if you and Mike stock up on snacks in your room," She said, already planning how they could spend their Saturdays.

Maybe she was assuming too much, but she was just too excited to have a fellow Jew on campus who wasn't that creep Jacob Ben Israel.

"Hey, I'll take you-doesn't matter if Mike and I keep shit in our room or not. Can't let my fellow Jew go hungry, can I?" He asked with a half smile, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. "So, ex-boyfriend, huh? What did he do to lose a girl like you?" He asked with a smirk.

"He broke up with me," She whispered, lowering her gaze as they walked.

"Well, then I guess I won't have to deal with him coming after me. He's an idiot, I hope you know that. No guy should break up with a girl like you-you're too...good for that. He was probably a dick that wasn't worth your time anyways," Puck said.

Rachel found herself smiling as she looked up at him, shooting him a curious look as he gazed ahead, squinting against the sunlight.


End file.
